RKW Limited
Category Director - Personal Care & Audio
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A new vacancy is now live within RKW Ltd’s Commercial function – at Category Director level, focusing on our Personal Care and Audio products.
We will be looking for someone to work cross-functionally between multiple departments, from Supply Chain, through Product Management, to Sales.
Role Purpose
The Category Director for Personal Care & Audio is responsible for leading the full commercial and product lifecycle strategy for a diverse portfolio spanning personal care, grooming, beauty electricals, oral care, hair care, wellbeing, headphones, speakers and connected audio accessories. The role ensures the business delivers profitable growth, channel-aligned ranging and compelling consumer propositions while maintaining a strategic balance of innovation, quality, value and brand relevance.
Key Responsibilities
Category Strategy & Leadership
- Define and deliver the long-term category strategy across Personal Care & Audio, aligned to revenue, margin, brand and channel growth objectives.
- Lead strategic focus on high-value and high-growth segments including hair styling, grooming, oral care, beauty electricals, headphones, earbuds, speakers and audio accessories, ensuring effective lifecycle management and the right balance of core, growth and innovation ranges.
- Drive consumer, shopper, competitor, technology and commercial insight into decision-making across all category plans, ensuring propositions respond to emerging trends in health, beauty, grooming, wellbeing and connected lifestyles.
Product Lifecycle Management
- Work with the Product Management team to oversee the NPI and NPD roadmap, ensuring timely approvals, channel-appropriate propositions, regulatory compliance and aligned go-to-market plans.
- Manage the SKU lifecycle from ideation through to exit, including major range reviews, SKU rationalisation activity, innovation pipeline management and margin improvement initiatives.
- Work with supply chain, product management, buying, quality and compliance teams to ensure cost efficiencies, MOQs, technical standards, safety requirements and margin targets are consistently achieved.
Commercial & Channel Development
- Own the commercial performance for the categories, delivering sales, margin, ASP and market share improvement through insight-led, quality-led and innovation-led propositions.
- Establish high-level pricing architecture across the category portfolio, including premium, mid-tier and value positioning, and approve major promotional strategies to protect margin, brand equity and channel competitiveness.
- Identify new channel and customer opportunities including Grocery, Online, Electrical, Pharmacy, Department Store, Traditional and European markets, supporting sell-in with compelling product content and investment-aligned activation plans.
- Lead demand generation and demand capture tactics in partnership with marketing and digital teams to build awareness, support launch excellence and improve in-market conversion.
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Cross‑Functional Collaboration
- Partner with other Category Directors, Product Managers, Buyers, Merchandising, Supply Chain, Quality, Compliance, Sales and Marketing to ensure seamless end-to-end category execution and commercial alignment.
- Support selling teams with improved category education, consumer need-state understanding, Good-Better-Best propositions, brand positioning and channel placement clarity.
- Ensure product content, forecasts, costings, and approvals are aligned ahead of key milestones, including sell‑in and retail promotional windows.
- Work with Product Managers, Buyers, Sales and cross-functional category contributors to build a high-performance, consumer-focused and commercially accountable culture.
- Establish best‑practice processes in category management, product development, lifecycle management, and competitor benchmarking.
- Drive continuous improvement in ways of working across Personal Care & Audio teams, aligning category activity with wider organisational strategy and customer growth priorities.
Skills & Experience Required
- Proven experience in Category Management, Product Management or Senior Sales within Personal Care, Beauty Electricals, Consumer Electronics, Audio or adjacent branded consumer goods categories.
- Strong commercial acumen with a track record of delivering margin, ASP, market share and profitable range growth across fast-moving consumer technology or personal care categories.
- Deep understanding of consumer insight, trend analysis, competitor landscapes, brand positioning and technology-led product innovation.
- Strong product development and lifecycle management expertise, including NPI/NPD processes, technical product launches and range optimisation.
- Excellent influencing skills with the ability to drive alignment across buying, product management, supply chain, quality, compliance, sales and marketing functions.
- Leadership capability to guide multi‑disciplinary teams and develop future commercial talent.
- Highly analytical, organised and proactive in identifying category opportunities, consumer trends, technology shifts, commercial risks and competitor threats.
- Awareness of relevant product safety, quality, claims, packaging and regulatory considerations within personal care electricals and consumer electronics.
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Key Categories Overseen
- Personal Care: Hair dryers, stylers, straighteners, grooming, shaving, trimmers, oral care, beauty electricals, wellness and health-focused personal care products.
- Audio: Headphones, earbuds, speakers, portable audio, soundbars, connected audio accessories and related technology-led propositions.
Success Measures
- Year-on-year category revenue, margin and market share growth across Personal Care & Audio.
- Improved ASP, stronger mix of innovation-led propositions and reduction of low-value, short-term tactical ranges.
- Successful execution of NPD roadmap, launch plans, lifecycle plans and range reviews.
- Reduction in SKU duplication and improved clarity across range architecture, price tiers and customer/channel propositions.
- Strong channel performance and increased distribution across UK, Europe and ROW customers.
- High category team engagement and capability uplift.
PLEASE NOTE:
- Closing date for applications is currently set at Monday August 10th – all CVs will be reviewed and responded to, once the closing date has passed.
Package & Benefits
- Competitive Market Salary with regular reviews
- Company Car
- Bonus Scheme
- Life Insurance Scheme
- Elevated Pension Contribution
- Private Personal Medical Cover
- Staff Discounts on all products
- Free secure parking on all sites
- Eye Care Support
- Come and help us to celebrate 35 years of business
If you feel you have the right background and experience to carry out this busy role, we look forward to hearing from you, apply now via this link or email your cv directly to recruitment@rkwltd.com
Notice to agencies. R K Wholesale Limited (the Company) will not accept unsolicited resumes from agencies, search firms, or independent agents for this available role. Resumes submitted without specific vacancy authorisation and valid signed agreement in place will become the sole property of the Company. Therefore, no fee will be payable should a candidate be hired as a result of an unsolicited agency, search firm or independent agent's referral.
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