Associate Director, Commercial Performance & Insights, Salon, Global

Founded in Japan in 1887, Kao is passionate about making a difference in peoples lives with our high quality products and services to create a Kirei Life for all - a beautiful life that respects the needs of our consumers and customers as well as the planet. We never compromise on quality and craft our products with care for the consumer and the environment.

As a company driven by purpose and strong corporate values we pride ourselves to be listed among the Worlds Most Ethical Companies since 16 consecutive years. Our corporate philosophy, the Kao Way, guides us in everything we do - acting with integrity, courageously driving innovation and treating each other with trust and respect.

Founded in Japan in 1887, Kao is passionate about making a difference in peoples lives with our high-quality products and services to create a Kirei Life for all - a beautiful life that respects the needs of our consumers and customers as well as the planet. We never compromise on quality and craft our products with care for the consumer and the environment. As a company driven by purpose and strong corporate values, we pride ourselves to be listed among the World´s Most Ethical Companies since 16 consecutive years. Our corporate philosophy, the Kao Way, guides us in everything we do - acting with integrity, courageously driving innovation, and treating each other with trust and respect.

Purpose of the Role

Reporting to the Head of Global Commercial Growth, the key function of this role is to lead the global CS&P growth agenda across all channels portfolio as well as lead the global CS&P team.

This person is accountable for customer engagement through identifying and developing commercial (channel/customer/category) initiatives to drive growth and customer loyalty.

Collaborating with the Global Design Team and Regional Teams, this person will drive the commercialization of Global Brand Initiatives through partnering with the other Global Design Teams to ensure a customer-centric global G2M approach to optimize the portfolio for global commercial success, supporting new product development, product launches and overall portfolio.

Education Experiences and other Requirements

• University degree or masters equivalent, ideally in finance, business or marketing
• Minimum of 7 years experience in commercial or strategy roles
• High proficiency in commercial modelling
• Strong understanding of the salon or broader beauty business is beneficial

Key Responsibilities

Commercial Strategy 10%

Support development and executing of our commercial strategy (the commercial growth part of “brand” strategy including channel (excl. Oribe). This involves identifying growth opportunities, develop and optimize channel strategy

Customer Engagement & Channel Growth 25%

• Ensure effective customer engagement throughout the entire customer journey to strengthen customer loyalty & satisfaction. This in collaborations with sales teams and includes:
• Gather and analyze customer data, e.g. institutionalize customer survey
• Define customer segmentation
• Drive initiatives to improve customer engagement (growth and satisfaction)
• Lead definition of sales fundamentals / KPIs
• Support customer negotiations as appropriate

Commercialize Global Initiatives 45%

• Customer centric story telling assets/formats like "Why GW?"
• Define sales fundamentals in collaboration with Commercial Performance & Insights
• Support (focus on Goldwell) on NPDs, brand extensions and relaunches with:

• Ensure and formulate customer-centric thinking and G2M approach including sales insight/story, audience definition, product-market fit and market sizing as well as support global channel specific trade marketing initiatives where appropriate

• Commercial objectives, portfolio goals, pricing input, channel assortment and KPIs for sales initiatives and product launches, working with Commercial Performance & Insights to ensure regional teams are set up to measure against these.

• Monitor global performance for new products against commercial KPIs, using this to surface insights, root causes and facilitate an organizational response where required working in close collaboration with Commercial Performance & Insights. This includes supporting post initiative evaluations (postmortem)

• Ensure the overall Goldwell product portfolio remains commercially optimized, working with regional teams to review current offering and facilitating an organizational response where required

Cross-functional collaboration and leadership 20%

• Collaborate with various departments, including Finance, Operations and Product Development to align commercial objectives with overall business goals. Develop and coach the Global Commercial team, bringing expertise to bear and encouraging collaborative relationships and behaviors
• Develop and grow the skill set of the global CS&P team and lead the global CS&P team.

How we work: Having been selected among the World´s Most Ethical Companies for 16 consecutive years, we are a company with a purpose and strong corporate values. We never compromise on quality and craft our products with care for the consumer and the environment. At Kao, each employee can actively shape their job and their career. We work collaboratively to achieve our common goals, always aiming to deliver the best for our customers.

What we offer: A friendly and flexible work environment with competitive salaries, benefits package, ongoing development and the opportunity to enhance your skills and deliver tangible results. At Kao your voice will be heard. Your opinion really counts. We believe that change comes from taking opportunities into your own hands, so we value and reward entrepreneurial thinking and innovation.

Hiring Process: Kao embraces the diversity and the individual personalities of its people because we believe it is diversity that makes us strong. This is why we welcome applications from all areas of the global community.

Want to learn more: If you feel you are as unique as our products and want to find out why 33,000 people across the globe opted for a career with us please visit https://www.kao.com/emea/en/