Job Summary: The Category and Assortment Director for Sysco Specialty Meat Group is responsible for setting and managing enterprise-wide category and assortment strategies. This role drives execution through cross-functional influence and engagement of all stakeholders. Key responsibilities include establishing and delivering KPIs that support both Sysco and SSMG objectives, optimizing SSMG’s customer-facing assortment, developing essential tools and execution tactics, and ensuring proper cross-functional leadership alignment. This role requires significant levels of cross-functional and leadership engagement, experience in building and executing large-scale strategies, and the ability to lead and influence category and assortment initiatives across a wide range of stakeholders. The Category and Assortment Director ensures complete alignment of assortment management objectives with sales, supply chain, digital, operations, and revenue management. About Sysco Specialty Meat Group: Sysco Specialty Meat Group is a leader in the specialty meat industry, committed to providing high-quality products and innovative solutions to meet the evolving needs of our customers. We strive to drive transformation and growth through strategic category and assortment management. Duties and Responsibilities: • Develop and execute category and assortment strategic plans and objectives supporting SSMG’s overall transformational objectives. • Leverage SSMG size and scale to effectively build category assortments, enhancing consistency and mitigating unnecessary category uniqueness. • Create consistent and unbiased performance metrics to assess category strategy effectiveness. • Design centrally led national/regional category assortments and strategies, complemented by local and customer segment-specific product offerings. • Implement change management strategies to ensure successful execution of assortment strategies at all organizational levels. • Develop and lead efforts to collaborate with USBL partners on assortment stocking optimization using data and insights, supported by growth and go-to-market strategies. • Continuously assess and address evolving process and technology needs to enable effective management of assortment at national, regional, and local levels. • Manage product development, SKU rationalization/standardization, SKU creation, and data/image attribution. • Provide ongoing leadership oversight of numerous projects/initiatives. Technical Skills and Abilities: • Proven experience in developing and executing large-scale category and assortment strategies. • Strong cross-functional leadership and engagement skills. • Demonstrated ability to lead and influence initiatives across a wide range of stakeholders. • Experience with change management and implementation of strategic plans. • Strong analytical skills with the ability to create and assess performance metrics. • Knowledge of supply chain, digital, operations, and revenue management principles. • High level of business/financial acumen. • Excellent communication and interpersonal skills. • Excellent organizational skills • Ability to multi-task, prioritize and manage many ongoing projects at once • Self-motivation with the ability to manage initiatives in a challenging, fast-paced environment. Education Required: • Bachelor’s degree from 4-year college/university or equivalent combination of education/experience in lieu of a degree sufficient Experience Preferred: • 10+ years leadership experience in Category Management or merchandising analytics in retail, specialty, or foodservice industry Travel Requirements: • 10-20% travel as needed Work Environment: • Remote