About Us
Proximo Spirits, Inc., a leading innovator and marketer of premium spirits in the U.S., is a privately-held company known for building and positioning some of the world's most iconic beverage brands. Key brands in the Proximo portfolio include Jose Cuervo® – the world's best-selling tequila brand, 1800® Tequila, Maestro Dobel® Tequila, Gran Centenario® Tequila, Bushmills® Irish Whiskey, and The Kraken® Black Spiced Rum. Proximo also imports and markets Three Olives® Vodka and more. For news and updates, follow us on LinkedIn, or visit proximospirits.com
Who We Are
At Proximo, we’re an entrepreneurial team with a passion for building legendary brands and shaping the future of the spirits industry. Our environment is fast-paced, highly collaborative, and results-driven. We embrace creative thinking, move with speed, and value bold ideas. You’ll be empowered to take ownership of your projects, challenge the status quo, and grow your career alongside world-class brands.
Position Summary
The Sr. Manager, Category & Customer Solutions serves as Trade Marketing’s lead for Category Management, Perfect Store / Perfect Bar, merchandising strategy, and category-led customer solutions.
This role brings together category, shopper, customer, channel, and market insights to establish category and execution standards, develop customer-facing selling solutions, and strengthen Proximo’s ability to win at shelf, in outlet, and with customers.
The individual owns the development and continuous evolution of Proximo’s Perfect Store / Perfect Bar framework and serves as the organization’s Category Management subject-matter expert. The role establishes scalable standards, frameworks, tools, and best practices while leveraging internal, distributor, customer, and external resources to support execution.
This position also provides specialized category and customer expertise against priority commercial opportunities, helping translate insights into actionable recommendations that improve distribution, assortment, visibility, merchandising, and rate of sale.
Responsibilities
Category Management & Governance
- Serve as Trade Marketing’s Category Management subject-matter expert.
- Establish Category Management principles, methodologies, standards, tools, and templates that strengthen category capabilities across the organization.
- Develop category-led recommendations rooted in shopper, syndicated, customer, distributor, and internal data.
- Identify growth opportunities related to assortment, distribution, visibility, shelf productivity, and rate of sale.
- Provide category expertise and strategic guidance on priority customer and channel opportunities.
- Review and provide strategic sign-off on priority planograms, assortment recommendations, shelf strategies, and category recommendations.
- Establish quality standards for category reviews and planogram development.
- Guide distributor and external Category Management resources in applying Proximo standards and developing customer-specific recommendations.
- Build Category Management capability through training, coaching, tools, and best-practice sharing.
Perfect Store / Perfect Bar & Execution Standards
- Own the development, governance, and continuous evolution of Proximo’s Perfect Store / Perfect Bar framework across priority channels and sub-channels.
- Establish clear execution standards across availability, assortment, shelf, visibility, display, cold box, menu, back bar, merchandising, and other relevant execution elements.
- Translate portfolio priorities, category insights, shopper behavior, and customer requirements into scalable execution standards.
- Define principles and standards for assortment, shelf placement, adjacency, category flow, visibility, and merchandising.
- Ensure Perfect Store / Perfect Bar standards are actionable, measurable, and adaptable by channel, sub-channel, and customer.
- Develop the guidelines, tools, and training required to enable consistent understanding and application of Perfect Store / Perfect Bar standards.
- Integrate Category Management principles into Perfect Store / Perfect Bar standards and customer-facing execution recommendations.
- Establish measurement requirements and execution KPIs that enable assessment of Perfect Store / Perfect Bar performance.
- Leverage execution learnings, customer feedback, and performance insights to continuously improve standards and recommendations.
Category-Led Customer & Selling Solutions
- Develop scalable category-led selling stories, frameworks, tools, templates, and best practices that strengthen customer conversations.
- Translate category, shopper, channel, and customer insights into compelling customer-facing recommendations.
- Provide specialized category and customer expertise for priority customer opportunities, RFPs, business reviews, and strategic selling initiatives.
- Identify recurring category and customer opportunities and develop scalable solutions that can be leveraged across multiple customers and channels.
- Develop customer-facing category tools and materials where specialized expertise creates meaningful value.
- Help strengthen the quality and consistency of fact-based customer storytelling across the organization.
- Build category-led selling capability through training, coaching, tools, and best-practice sharing.
Insights & Analytical Capability
- Demonstrate strong proficiency in syndicated, customer, distributor, shopper, and internal data and apply these resources to inform category and customer recommendations.
- Independently interrogate data to identify category, assortment, distribution, velocity, visibility, and merchandising opportunities.
- Evaluate business opportunities and validate category and customer recommendations through fact-based analysis.
- Translate complex data and insights into concise, compelling commercial and customer-facing stories.
- Apply strong analytical judgment to challenge assumptions, identify opportunities, and improve the quality of recommendations.
- Effectively leverage available data, analytical platforms, and analytical resources to support strategic category and customer work.
- Apply performance and execution insights to identify opportunities to continuously improve category and Perfect Store / Perfect Bar standards.
Priority Customer Relationship Insights
- Help establish a simple and scalable framework for capturing relevant intelligence on select priority customers and high-value buyer relationships.
- Capture relevant customer and buyer preferences, business interests, engagement history, and relationship opportunities that can strengthen customer engagement.
- Use relevant relationship insights to enable more informed and personalized engagement.
- Identify opportunities for appropriate recognition, experiences, communications, and gifting in accordance with company policies and applicable regulations.
- Surface relevant relationship insights that can strengthen customer relationships and selling effectiveness
Key Relationships
- Trade Marketing
- Commercial Planning
- Commercial Strategy
- Business Intelligence
- National Accounts
- Sales Leadership
- Distributor Category Management & Sales Teams
- Brand Marketing
- POS
- Finance
- External Category Management and Insights Partners
Knowledge and Experience
- Bachelor’s degree required.
- 7+ years of experience in Category Management, Customer Development, Customer Marketing, Trade Marketing, Shopper Marketing, Sales Strategy, or related CPG commercial roles.
- Strong Category Management experience required.
- Beverage Alcohol or CPG experience strongly preferred.
- Experience supporting National Accounts, Regional Accounts, Control States, Independent Retail, and/or On-Premise channels.
- Experience working with distributor and/or customer Category Management teams strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated experience translating category, shopper, and customer insights into compelling recommendations and selling stories.
- Experience with assortment planning, shelf strategy, merchandising, planograms, and category recommendations.
- Experience developing or managing retail execution, Perfect Store, merchandising, or similar commercial execution frameworks preferred.
- Strong commercial acumen and understanding of how category and shopper insights influence customer decisions.
- Strong analytical capability with the ability to independently work with syndicated and customer data.
- Demonstrated ability to influence and enable cross-functional and external partners without direct authority.
Technical Skills
Required
- Advanced Microsoft Excel
- Advanced PowerPoint and visual storytelling
- Circana / IRI / Nielsen syndicated data
- Category Management methodologies
- Customer and category analytics
- Assortment and merchandising analysis
- Customer presentation development
- Ability to translate complex data into compelling commercial recommendations
Preferred
- Planogram software experience (Blue Yonder/JDA, Apollo, Spaceman, or equivalent)
- Tableau, Power BI, or similar visualization platforms
- CRM or customer relationship management platforms
- Experience developing Category Management standards, Perfect Store frameworks, or similar execution capabilities
The salary range for this role is a base salary of $134,400 - $173,000 along with an annual bonus, 401K match, and medical and wellness benefits. The range will vary if outside of this location. Base salaries are determined during our interview process, by assessing a candidate’s experience and skill set against internal peers and against the scope and responsibilities of the position.
Proximo is an equal opportunity employer and does not unlawfully discriminate against employees or applicants for employment based on race, color, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, national origin, citizenship status, age, genetic information, physical or mental disability of an otherwise qualified individual, membership or application for membership in a uniformed service, engaging in legally protected activity, or any other characteristic protected under applicable law.