Manager Sales

JAMES F. BERG

*** *. ******* *****

847-***-**** Palatine, Illinois 60074 ********@*****.***

SUMMARY

Category Management professional focused on bringing consumer insights to marketing and sales

through comprehensive analysis of Market and Retail information. Experience working with a well

known branded house wares company with market knowledge and experience for almost every major

retailer and channel. Expertise in effectively collaborating with Sales and Marketing functions to build

and implement product strategies. Strengths include thorough knowledge of strategic planning, data

warehousing and mining, analytics along with critical thinking to identify solutions to meet any

opportunity. Demonstrated ability to manage people and syndicated data vendor relationships.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Highly proficient in MS Excel, Access and PowerPoint; SAP, Retail Applications Retail Link, Partners

Online, Intercept Planogramming, Interactive Edge, Nielsen and NPD syndicated data applications and

Market Track ADView.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

WORLD KITCHEN LLC, Rosemont, IL 1996 - 2008

Category Management Group Manager 2007 - 2008

Directed and guided a Category Management group of 6 employees using Category Management best

practices in achieving product placement within the retailers.

• Gained 3 new category advisorships at 3 major retailers within the last year.

• Implemented a new Category Management training program, to increase aptitude of the organization

for Category management process. Trained 100+ employees and the entire Sales and Marketing

groups.

• Guided the development of each Category Manager and their use of current systems such as SAP,

Business Warehouse, Nielsen Nitro, NPD Power viewer and Microsoft applications Excel and Access

to process customer retail data.

• Managed relationships with syndicated data providers NPD, Nielsen, and Market Track.

Senior Category Manager 2004 - 2006

Category Management responsibilities for 6-7 categories and up to 12 customers within the Grocery channel.

Supervised one Category Manager and Business Analyst.

• Established and managed first category advisor role at Target for the Bakeware category.

• Hired and trained new Business Analyst position to handle the analysis and compiling of all market

information from syndicated data sources.

• Designed and established monthly Market Share reports, still in use today, for 5+ categories compiled

from multiple data sources and retail channel information.

• Support Sales team in the creation/development of account meeting presentations.

• Lead the efforts to coordinate and analyze syndicated and consumer data to support the teams

Category Management process and also brand marketing/product development.

JAMES BERG 847-***-**** Page two

Category Manager / Analyst 2000 - 2004

Category Manager for multiple categories and multiple retailers focused primarily on key customers:

WalMart and Kmart.

• Established first category advisorship in the Kitchenware category at WalMart. Provided market

comparisons, share and trends of the available Kitchenware market data from Nielsen

• Custom built category segmentation for all categories where none were established by any data

provider using consumer buying habits and spending trends.

Trade Marketing Analyst 1998-2000

Assist Trade Marketing group in monitoring Retail and Market POS information and also assist in making

recommendations for promotional activities.

Forecast Analyst 1996-1998

Create and monitor sku specific forecasts for strategic business units to help demand planning in

manufacturing and purchasing products.

EDUCATION

Masters of Science, Exercise Science, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston IL

Bachelor of Science, Physical & Health Education, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL

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