Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:
Drive and ensure business success for dedicated focused Category - TRAINING and Sportswear APP through the development & execution of a robust Category GTM plan, within the strategic framework set by the European BU’s & following local Poland and Czech Republic execution plan. Act as category expert and key contact for category in respective location.
Key Responsibilities:
Go-To-Market & GTM Execution:
- Deliver a complete GTM proposition and local category marketing plan aligned with seasonal objectives for the product division.
- The GTM plan includes product, distribution, communication, activation tools, sports marketing, omnichannel, and Key City perspective.
- Represent the brand and BU internally and externally.
- Support the European BU on local ranging, forecasting, and pricing topics (data, mark-up, segmentation, allocation).
- Provide input into SMU for local key accounts.
- Get an early preview of the new season: Collaborate with stakeholders to review product concepts, provide feedback on market alignment, and ensure the product assortment meets demand.
- Work with stakeholders to create activation plans for product launches, determining retailer selection and marketing budget allocation.
- Ensure effective Go-To-Market execution, managing the product journey from HQ creation to retail landing, including retailer selection, activations, and visibility.
- Own the process from product creation (with no direct impact) to its retail landing and activations.
Collaboration & Process:
- Key contact person for Sales as well as cross functional marketing teams
- Develop category plans and drive handover to Sales during Sales & Marketing meetings (SMM)
- Together with Sports Marketing, create and present specific promo ranges and product offers in alignment with Europe BU
- Ensures an efficient execution of the given sample order process & on target/budget
- Engage with a x-functional group of category experts from different marketing & sales teams (“category/master-groups”) to drive the review and steering of the Cluster GTM plan and process for the Category
- Pro-active ambassador for the category and collaborates with Key City Manager (support, represent BU, etc.)
- Serve as the voice of Poland and Czech Republic towards Europe, ensuring that the needs of local markets are communicated effectively to European counterparts.
- Serve as the voice of Europe within local markets, translating European strategies into actionable local plans.
Commercial & Analytics:
- Demonstrate a “full marketplace” attitude (ALL countries & channels: DTC, WHS, X-border accounts) and stays in close exchange with the relevant AKA teams
- Drives the successful sell-in process (from Category input, over pre-lines to sell-in meetings of identified strategic accounts)
- Develops relevant distribution and segmentation strategies to successfully manage key franchises in the Cluster (MRA tiering, Allocation)
- Uses available market data to build dedicated product division plans (e.g. NPD data)
- Maintain regular analytics on the sell-in and sell-through performance of respective category (analytical support from Finance team)
- Give input to European BU’s on country price-grouping and submit requests exception throughout the pricing process
- Provide feedback on product offerings and suggest necessary adjustments to align with local market needs, particularly for seasonal products (FW/SS).
Key Relationships:
- Cluster Poland and Czech Republic SLT & their 1st lines
- Brand activation: Comms, Omnichannel & Sports Marketing teams
- Sales, AKA & DTC
- European BU
- Cluster MOPS
- Business & Sales Development
- Key City Teams
- Finance teams
KPIs:
- Net Sales
- Net Margin
- Go In Margin
- Sell out
- Market share development
- Share of search
Knowledge, skills and abilities:
- Consumer focus with deep product and range knowledge (app, ftw, acc) with a strong understanding of seasonality (FW/SS).
- Excellent understanding of the balanced relationship between brand and commercial aspects to develop distribution-channel-specific GTM solutions
- Strong understanding of sports and or lifestyle industry, or at least familiarity with the sports market and its trends.
- Strong organizational and convincing presentation skills
- Passionate about sports, preferably TRAINING specific with knowledge of the sport Pro- active (engaging & impact-oriented) mindset, ability to think end-to-end
- Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with different international cultures
- Business mindset: Very good numerical and analytical skills, experience in finance
- Good experience to manage projects on cross-functional level
- Manager with advanced cross functional marketing knowledge and market experience in sport and/or fashion/lifestyle categories
- Passionate about sports & fashion
Requisite Education and Experience/Minimum Qualifications
- University degree in business, ideally with marketing and sales focus or equivalent professional experience
- 6-8 years of Merchandising Experience, cross-functional marketing and/or sales experience preferably in fashion, apparel, or footwear.
- Fluency in English (written and spoken), German and Polish is a big plus.
- IT skills: Outlook and Word (Basic); Excel and PowerPoint (advanced)
- Competencies also for hybrid teams (remote teams)
- People Connector – inclusive mindset and team player living DEI standards
- Regular travel required (30% within a year across Central/Eastern Europe)
adidas celebrates diversity, supports inclusiveness and encourages individual expression in our workplace. We do not tolerate the harassment or discrimination toward any of our applicants or employees. We are an equal opportunity employer.