Manager, Global Category

Our Blend

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf is one of the world's largest independent and privately-owned specialty coffee and tea retailers. In 1963 we opened our very first store, and today we have over 1000 cafes across the world, as well as our Global Headquarters in Singapore.

We are united by our passion for connecting people through the daily rituals of coffee and tea—viewing every cup as an opportunity to impact someone's day.

Our Brew Crew is a diverse team of hard-working optimists with a passion for learning about our craft, the people we serve, and the world around us. We offer the tools, the environment, and the support for you to make your unique contribution and grow as a person.

Passion is contagious, and we've got a serious case of it. If you are just as passionate as we are, come join our Brew Crew!

Brew Crew Opportunity

We are seeking a Global Category Manager to own and drive the growth across our portfolio. This role sits within the Consumer Marketing team and plays a critical part in translating our growth strategy into clear category plans, strong assortments, and commercially sound business priorities.

The Global Category Manager acts as the commercial owner; responsible for value creation, driving revenue growth, margin improvement, and portfolio optimisation. This role combines strategic planning, commercial analysis, and cross-functional execution.

The Global Category Manager develops the 18-month category roadmap, leads go-to-market initiatives, optimises product mix and pricing, and ensures the category delivers sustainable performance. The ideal candidate is commercially sharp, data-driven, and highly disciplined in project management.

Key Responsibilities

In this role, you will manage:

Category Growth & Strategy

• Drive the overall strategy in line with the company's growth agenda and brand positioning.
• Develop clear category plans to drive sales, margin, and long-term relevance.
• Identify growth opportunities through category expansion, optimization, renovation, or innovation.

Data & Commercial Insights

• Use available data sources (e.g. sell-in data, franchisee reports where available, market trends, consumer insights, and qualitative inputs) to assess category performance.
• Work with imperfect or partial data, using proxies and hypotheses to identify risks, opportunities, and growth levers.
• Translate insights into clear business priorities, recommendations, and action plans.
• Define data needs and progressively build stronger category performance visibility over time.

Assortment, Range & Product (Retail / Merchandise) Management

• Lead assortment planning for the categories (e.g. Beverage, CPG, merchandises).
• Own the end-to-end product lifecycle, from concept ideation and briefing to range rationalization and exit decisions.
• Partner with internal stakeholders to define product concepts, specifications, and lifecycle management.
• Ensure the right balance between core items, innovation, and seasonal or limited-time offerings.

Pricing & Value Strategy

• Support pricing strategy development, including price architecture, pack-price logic, and value propositions.
• Work closely with Finance to assess cost structures, margins, and pricing scenarios.

Project & Vendor Management

• Act as a strong project manager, owning timelines, milestones, and cross-functional coordination.
• Manage external vendors and partners, ensuring delivery against scope, quality, and timelines.
• Support product launches end-to-end, from planning to execution readiness.

Your Ingredients

• Proven experience as a Category Manager, Brand Manager, or similar role.
• Strong understanding of how to grow and manage a category in a consumer-facing business.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in managing assortment, range planning, and product lifecycles, ideally in CPG, or FMCG environments.
• Working knowledge of pricing strategy and commercial fundamentals.
• Strong project management skills with experience managing timelines and multiple stakeholders.
• Passion in coffee & tea is highly preferred.

Performance & Rewards

At The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, we embrace a high-performance culture that rewards and encourages our values of teamwork, ownership, and respect for one another.

Our FROTH VALUES

We believe in the fundamental truths that guide us through our daily lives:

• FRIENDLINESS - We go above and beyond in everything we do. Friendliness and customer-centricity is embedded in our culture.
• RESPECT - We are inclusive and honour each other's values, opinions and diversity.
• OWNERSHIP - We take ownership and accountability for our individual, team and business results, every day.
• TEAMWORK - As a team, we collaborate, innovate, and leverage our diverse strengths to grow the business.
• HONESTY - We live up to the highest levels of integrity by being truthful and transparent with each other, the business and ourselves.

At The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, we are a global company committed to representing the neighborhoods we serve. We welcome all to apply to our Brew Crew and we value the impact of diversity on our culture and in our work.