M&S Food is changing, and fast! We are undergoing one of the biggest transformations in retailing today to build a bigger, better, fresher food business.

From Percy Pig to the freshest M&S Select Farms produce, we grow, source, and develop our own products to give our customers family-ready food that's unbeatable on flavour and innovation.

We need motivated people who are ready to bring their whole self to work and give it their all in a fast-paced team committed to being the best. After all, this is not just food… This is M&S Food.

Are you an entrepreneurial, enthusiastic and energetic leader? Do you deliver challenging projects at pace whilst handling a variety of partners? Do you analyse data to make challenging business decisions? Do you have a keen eye for detail and can build attractive but operationally sustainable displays? Then we need you!

This role is fundamental in driving our Category Transformation process and turning category vision into reality in our stores. You manage a team of Display Planners and Leads who have their own category responsibilities. You work closely with Head of Trade, Trading Managers and their wider Trading teams, to ensure we are providing choice to our customers, maximising profit and building easy to shop, visually appealing and operationally sustainable planograms.

Key accountabilities and measure

• Deliver against the SRD, Product Development and Category Transformation critical paths, whilst leading your team and influencing others to ensure your team meet their deadlines
• Ensure your team’s planograms accurately reflect the range and adhere to M&S Food display principles and inventory rules to support ‘right first time’ retail implementation
• Partner the Head of Trade, Trading Managers and Buyers to optimise customer-led assortments ensuring alignment with business and category strategy, category role, customer needs and commercial requirements
• Commission management information, such as target inventory data, shelf efficiency, stocking points, space and cluster performance and derive range & display strategies to improve commercial performance (sales and profit)
• Work with the Supply Chain team to maximise availability and limit waste and stock loss
• Work with Macro-Space colleagues to optimise your team’s ranges across our formats and clusters
• Ensure the best practise processes and ways of working as a result of the end-to-end system transformation are fully adopted and embedded within your team
• Visit M&S stores and liaise with Selling teams regularly to review the implementation of space, range and planograms, encourage store feedback and identify potential improvements and opportunities
• Visit competitors regularly and liaise with suppliers to keep abreast of industry activities and trends
• Develop, lead and inspire a capable team to drive sales & profit. Coach and develop the team to ensure a succession pipeline is in place for all key roles in the Chilled Merchandising team

The successful applicant will need extensive Space, Range and Display experience in the food retail sector. You should have hands-on experience of JDA suite (or comparable planograming software), Business Objects and Microsoft Office. Strong people management and strong leadership behaviours are vital.

M&S is ready to push boundaries to lead the industry into a greener, speedier, more inspiring digital era. That’s why we’re revolutionising how we work and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. There’s never been a better time to be part of our team. Marks & Spencer aims to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make an immediate impact. We are committed to an active Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities Policy, which starts with our recruitment and selection process, and we are happy to talk flexible working.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process. If you consider yourself to have a disability or learning difficulty which means you are unable to complete the application process online, please get in touch either by phone on 0345 300 3725 or by email recruitment.online@marksandspencer.com so we can make alternative arrangements for you.

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