Category Manager, Finland (Maternity Cover)

About Hero Nordics & Baltics

You’ll be part of family-owned company that values autonomy and accountability. You’ll work with some of ours most beloved brands—Semper in Baby Food, Goodies for pre-schoolers, and Corny, the fastest-growing brand in the bar category. This is a unique opportunity to make a visible impact in a market-leading company that prioritizes sustainability, integrity, and natural goodness.

About Hero Group

Hero is a global food company, founded in 1886 in Switzerland, specializing in branded nutritional products across the Growing Up and Adult categories. With a portfolio of trusted brands like Corny, Semper, Goodies, Beech-Nut, Organix, and Deliciously Ella, Hero delivers high-quality, great-tasting food rooted in natural goodness. Guided by its mission to “To delight Consumers through honest Goodness in every Bite”. With 4,000 team members worldwide, the company is driven by strong values, high performance, and a commitment to doing the right thing—always, without compromise.

About The Role

As a Category Manager, your main goal is to create sustainable category growth and position Semper/ Hero as the preferred brand within Infant food and Healthy snacking at our key customers. 

You will be responsible for engaging with our key customers, building relationships and influencing them to deliver long-term growth and implement Semper's/ Hero´s category initiatives. You will work cross-functionally with sales and marketing to ensure alignment of recommendations to add value for both Semper/Hero and our retailers.

The responsibilities of our Category Manager range from market & portfolio analysis, planogram build-up, banner specific business cases, Brand and product level tracking development in terms of NSV, GM3, A&P, profit, ratio, distribution and shelf space vs market share. You’ll support Head of Categories in pricing/price adjustments by following competitor pricing and building and giving proposals for price adjustments

You internal stakeholders will be our sales department incl. sales representatives, Key Account Managers, Local Product Managers, Trade Marketing Manager and a Business controller. Externally you will liaise with Market Research agencies, Key Customers and Service providers

Key Responsibilities

• Market & portfolio analysis - monitor the performance of the Semper/Hero portfolio vs. competitor with the help of internal financial analysis & Analys figures of POS date from SOK and Kesko
• Lead local NPD projects or other marketing projects which are led from global or Nordic teams
• Planogram build-up and sell-in at central customers to improve Semper/ Hero share of shelf & share of sku’s and grow sales at our customers
• Development of category dashboards together with sales-, marketing team and external company, Analysis
• Create long-term strategic partnership with our customers and support them with questions related to category development, assortment, price positioning
• After Toolbox delivery strengthen and revise the trade story into Finnish consumers, shoppers and customer needs. Presentation of insights in a comprehensive and actionable way internally and to our customers.

Target and Sub Goals:

• Support the development of our strategies for Infant food and Healthy snacking & create effective category initiatives, tailored by customers, to support growth for Semper/Hero and for our partners
• Support Sales and our customers with data driven insight and identify growth opportunities per category / product group / segment
• Influence retailers by implementing recommendations tailored to their specific needs
• Monitor, evaluate & communicate changes in category, customer dynamics and competitor activities and recommend actions to address issues and opportunities affecting the category and the Semper/ Hero brands
• Develop a strong Shopper, Consumer and Customer knowledge, identify insights that can enable us to leverage growth
• Category Manager will prepare recommendations for category development activities/projects for each customer/banner. Activities will be aligned with KAM & Head of Categories and prioritized with Country manager (depending on the scope of the activity/project). After decision has been made, Category Manager will have the full mandate to drive through activities within the given frame

 About You

• Master of Economy degree or equivalent
• 3-5 years’ experience within category management or a similar role is required
• A background within FMCG and a commercial experience (within Sales, Marketing, Key account management or Trade)
• Fluent in both Finnish & English (spoken & written). Swedish will be advantageous but not essential
• Knowledge & Other skills (language, IT, specific functional skills etc)
• Advanced Power point skills, good MS office knowledge including advanced Excel skills, Experience of SAP
• Strong knowledge of analysing data
• Extended Excell skills
• Presentation skills
• Commercial strategy skills
• Negotiation skills
• Broad and deep knowledge about our Category management and strategies
• Strong in finance

Why Join Us?

• Be part of Family-own company with value and purpose driven culture having long-term 2035 vision and mission in place
• Join us in shaping global brands and strengthening our presence in the Nordics, Baltics and Iceland
• Work in a dynamic, truly purpose-driven team that values creativity and responsibility
• Enjoy a role with high impact, cross-functional exposure, and international collaboration
• Join us working in Helsinki, Pasila Tripla office with highly engaged team having a good team spirit
• We value work-life balance and offer you hybrid working model 60% per week at the office and with sport-/ culture and lunch benefits

Our culture

At Hero, we believe great companies are built by people who are empowered to make a real impact. We have an open, flexible, and informal way of working, where everyone has a voice in shaping what we do and how we do it. We collaborate with colleagues across our international organisation.

With short decision-making lines and a flat structure, ideas move quickly and contributions are recognised. We don’t hire people to follow instructions—we hire people who want to take ownership and make their mark. If you spot an opportunity, you’re encouraged to act on it, and if you’re ambitious, you’ll find the freedom to grow.

Creativity, curiosity, and an entrepreneurial mindset are part of everyday life at Hero. We trust our people to drive their own development, support one another, and push boundaries together. Just as importantly, we genuinely enjoy working together and looking out for each other.

Our Values

Our values are at the Heart of everything we do. Developed through an inclusive process involving colleagues from across the business. They guide how we work, collaborate, and succeed together. They reflect who we are today and the future we are building.

Create Wow - We go beyond expectations and strive to make a meaningful impact

Everyone Hero – Every individual matters and every contribution counts.

Nourish Others – We support, inspire, and help each other grow.

Take Responsibility - We own our actions and outcomes, individually and as a team

Ready to create WOW with us?

Applications are only accepted via our Job Site portal and must be submitted in English, including both your application and CV. Please submit your application no later than 1 August 2026.

Interviews will be conducted on an ongoing basis, and we therefore encourage you to apply as soon as possible. We look forward to receiving your application