Director, Category Management / Buying
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What you'll do
- Set the direction of the team and the assortment strategy behind Zapp's catalogue, deciding what we range next and why, and building the people who will take it further.
- Set the targets that matter: define the goals and KPIs for range, quality and margin, and hold the team accountable to them quarter after quarter.
- Build the long-term supplier onboarding platform and strategy, turning supplier acquisition into a growth engine rather than a bottleneck.
- Own the supplier relationships and commercial agreements across the network, negotiating cost, terms and rebate in a way that funds growth and protects the brand experience.
- Build the systems and processes that let Category Management scale with the range rather than with headcount, freeing the team's time for the next big range decision, not the last administrative one.
- Drive the best assortment in London: spot the gaps before competitors do, back the ranges customers will want next, and keep the catalogue moving forward.
- Get into the detail and turn it into an edge: know what's working and what's failing at SKU level, and use it to find the next opportunity, not just fix the last problem.
- Stay customer obsessed in everything you do: let what's best for the customer, not just what's easiest to buy, decide what makes the cut in the catalogue.
- Partner closely with Marketing, Merchandising, Finance and Supply Chain so range, pricing, promotion and availability move together as one growth plan.
What they're looking for
- Substantial experience leading Category Management, Buying or Commercial teams at scale, ideally somewhere that grew fast.
- A track record of owning supplier relationships and commercial agreements as a growth lever, not just individual negotiations.
- Experience building scalable supplier onboarding processes or platforms.
- A builder's mindset: comfortable replacing ad hoc processes with systems that scale, rather than getting faster at working around them.
- Strong analytical fluency: confident interrogating data in BI tools, Sheets or SQL and building the business case behind a range or pricing decision.
- A genuine curiosity about product and quality, and the instinct to spot what London's best customers will want next.
- Proven cross-functional leadership across Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain and Merchandising.
- A tenacious communicator who gets things done with suppliers and stakeholders alike.
Summarised by NextRaise from the employer’s description, which follows in full below.
Full description from employer
Director, Category Management / Buying
Location: Nine Elms, London | Full-time
About Zapp
Zapp is London's leading premium convenience retail platform. Founded in 2020, our vision is to disrupt the multi-trillion dollar convenience retail market, currently dominated by major players, by developing best-in-class customer-centric technology and fulfilment solutions. Zapp partners with some of the world's leading brands to deliver an exclusive range of hand-picked products 24/7, delivered in minutes.
The Role
We are looking for a Director of Category Management to build the growth engine behind Zapp's range: a role that sets the direction, catalogue and assortment strategy, and gets sharper as we scale rather than just keeping pace with it. You will build the long-term supplier onboarding platform and strategy that lets us bring on great brands faster, and own the supplier relationships and commercial agreements that fund the range's growth. Every range and pricing call should start from the same place: what makes a Zapp customer order again tomorrow.
This is a role for someone who wants to build, not just run. You will turn category management from a series of individual calls into a system that scales, freeing up headroom to take on more of the range as it grows rather than spending your time putting out fires. You will run the team shaping category strategy day to day, build the supplier network Zapp needs for its next phase, and work closely with Marketing, Merchandising, Finance and Supply Chain to keep pushing the range further ahead.
Here's What You'd Be Doing
Set the direction of the team and the assortment strategy behind Zapp's catalogue, deciding what we range next and why, and building the people who will take it further.
Set the targets that matter: define the goals and KPIs for range, quality and margin, and hold the team accountable to them quarter after quarter.
Build the long-term supplier onboarding platform and strategy, turning supplier acquisition into a growth engine rather than a bottleneck.
Own the supplier relationships and commercial agreements across the network, negotiating cost, terms and rebate in a way that funds growth and protects the brand experience.
Build the systems and processes that let Category Management scale with the range rather than with headcount, freeing the team's time for the next big range decision, not the last administrative one.
Drive the best assortment in London: spot the gaps before competitors do, back the ranges customers will want next, and keep the catalogue moving forward.
Get into the detail and turn it into an edge: know what's working and what's failing at SKU level, and use it to find the next opportunity, not just fix the last problem.
Stay customer obsessed in everything you do: let what's best for the customer, not just what's easiest to buy, decide what makes the cut in the catalogue.
Partner closely with Marketing, Merchandising, Finance and Supply Chain so range, pricing, promotion and availability move together as one growth plan.
What We're Looking For
Substantial experience leading Category Management, Buying or Commercial teams at scale, ideally somewhere that grew fast.
A track record of owning supplier relationships and commercial agreements as a growth lever, not just individual negotiations.
Experience building scalable supplier onboarding processes or platforms.
A builder's mindset: comfortable replacing ad hoc processes with systems that scale, rather than getting faster at working around them.
Strong analytical fluency: confident interrogating data in BI tools, Sheets or SQL and building the business case behind a range or pricing decision.
A genuine curiosity about product and quality, and the instinct to spot what London's best customers will want next.
Proven cross-functional leadership across Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain and Merchandising.
A tenacious communicator who gets things done with suppliers and stakeholders alike.
Benefits
Competitive salary & equity package.
Enjoy 25 days of holiday per year (plus all bank holidays).
Private Health Insurance.
Zapp Credit for testing the Zapp service and experience
Lunch provided 4 days of a week at HQ
Extended sick pay and maternity/paternity leave pay.
Cycle to work scheme.
Company
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