DS Smith Group on cord

DS Smith Group

Category Manager

External position
Solihull, UK
Hiring internally for DS Smith Group?
Manufacturing · Sustainability
Redefining Packaging for a Changing World
Posted
2 months ago
Checked
cord regularly checks that external positions are still open
2 days ago

Skills & Experience

Job roles: Brand Marketing
Experience level: Mid, Senior, Lead
Core skills considered: Business Analysis, Business development, Business Development Strategy, Content marketing, Conversion rate optimisation
Other skills considered: Customer profiling, Customer service, Customer support, Growth marketing, Marketing strategy

Logistics

Base salary: Undisclosed
Some companies on cord are unable to disclose salaries publicly due to internal company policies. Message the company for salary information.
Employment type: Permanent
Remote working: Hybrid
Visa sponsorship: Not available

Job Description

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join the UK & Ireland Marketing team at DS Smith as a Category Manager. This is a highly visible role, responsible for leading the development of our growth agenda across priority segments.

You will help lead the Annual Business Planning process for UK&I through profit pool mapping, category strategy development, growth roadmaps, and market opportunity assessments. Working closely with Sales, the wider Marketing team and Innovation teams, you will combine external market, customer and category insights with internal business intelligence to identify growth opportunities, shape strategic priorities and build targeted customer growth partnerships. You will also develop differentiated value propositions for key segments and customers, clearly articulating DS Smith's unique value and competitive advantage.

Working with the broader Marketing team, you will help shape segment- and account-specific communication plans, providing ongoing category expertise, actionable insights and strategic support to commercial teams across the region to drive customer engagement and business growth.

By developing a deep understanding of market dynamics, industry trends, shopper behavior, and retail developments, you will translate insights into actionable strategies and initiatives. This includes leading competitor benchmarking, market mapping, customer prioritisation and share-of-wallet analysis to identify and size growth opportunities that drive sales growth, enhance value performance across focus categories, and create competitive advantage for both DS Smith and our customers. Partnering closely with Sales teams, you will strengthen our position as a trusted packaging and category expert, helping customers navigate evolving market demands while delivering sustainable business growth.

You will also support customer engagement through the development of compelling customer presentations, pitches, and growth-focused proposals.

You will play a key role in shaping the innovation agenda, assessing the competitive landscape and our existing product portfolio to identify gaps, growth opportunities, and innovation priorities. You will lead category innovation exploration to address unmet customer needs and pain points, identify emerging packaging and sustainability opportunities, and evaluate the size and commercial potential of opportunities within the market. Working closely with customers, Sales and Innovation teams, you will ensure market and customer insights are translated into actionable commercial and innovation strategies.

This role also involves monitoring sustainability, circular economy and regulatory developments, including PPWR, EUDR and Digital Product Passport requirements, working closely with the Sustainability Manager to translate market and legislative changes into customer opportunities.

To succeed, you will be a strong collaborator and influencer, capable of engaging stakeholders at all levels across a matrix organisation. You will bring experience in category management, strategic marketing, customer insight, combined with a passion for innovation and growth. Experience leading business planning, category planning or strategic account planning processes, and translating market insights into actionable commercial strategies, would be highly advantageous.


Responsibilities

  • Demonstrable Marketing, Category Management, ideally within a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) or B2B company.
  • High familiarity with major market research databases and data sources such as Euromonitor, Mintel, IGD, or Kantar/Nielsen.
  • Proven ability to link deep analytical research to business performance, driving actionable plans that translate complex consumer and retail trends into clear profit metrics.
  • Exceptional presentation and interpersonal skills, with a collaborative mindset to confidently guide matrix contacts and establish strong customer partnerships.
  • Strong organisational capability, acting as an outcome-focused self-starter who can effectively prioritise projects, judge business risks, and manage pre-defined budget targets.
  • Advanced Microsoft Office skills (especially Excel); a strong curiosity and foundational interest in consumer behaviour, manufacturing supply chains, and fast-changing sales channels (e-commerce, retail marketing).

Company Benefits

  • Competitive salary
  • Company car
  • Company bonus
  • 25 days holiday plus bank holiday
  • Pension scheme, life assurance and income protection
  • Salary sacrifice electric car scheme
  • Cycle to work scheme
  • Corporate discounts, free eye test and flu jab
  • Employee Assistance Programme
  • Virtual GP, Mental Health first aiders and Occupational Health
  • Recognition programmes
  • Learning and development opportunities

Category Manager at DS Smith Group
Position posted 2 months ago

Talk directly
to who's hiring

cord intros you to the companies worth joining, from seed to enterprise.

Everything you need to find work

Surface every relevant position, direct message the people hiring and manage all your applications in one place.

Get started

Every position in one place

We index the web for open positions that might be relevant to you and bring them all in one place.

Positions you might like split into tabs based on their type

Direct messaging

No more CV blackholes. Message people hiring directly and see their activity live on cord.

A sent message to a hiring manager
A board of positions in different stages

Application management

Manage all your applications and interviews in one place.

Advanced insights

Know your worth and see how you compare with other applicants.

Visualisation of a profile match score for a position and score comparison with other applicants

Direct.
Transparent.
Human.

On cord you can message people hiring directly, see when they were last active, how responsive they are and access transparent information that you wouldn't be able to find anywhere else.

Photos people at Starling BankPhotos people at Starling BankPhotos people at Starling BankPhotos people at Starling BankPhotos people at Starling Bank
Starling Bank on cord

Starling Bank

Full Stack Engineer (ML Ops)

London, UK
FinTech · Banking · Finance
A better bank for everyone
Active
over 6 months ago
Responds to
0% of requests
Responds in
1h 55m
Requests
7 pending

Skills & Experience

Job roles: Full Stack
Experience level: Mid, Senior
Core skills considered: Java, React, Redux, AWS, JavaScript

Logistics

Base salary: £70K - £110K
Employment type: Permanent
Remote working: Hybrid (up to 2 remote days p/w)
Visa sponsorship: Not available

Job Description

Starling is the UK’s first and leading digital bank on a mission to fix banking! Our vision is fast technology, fair service, and honest values. All at the tap of a phone, all the time.

Starling is the UK’s first and leading digital bank on a mission to fix banking! We built a new kind of bank because we knew technology had the power to help people save, spend and manage their money in a new and transformative way.

We’re a fully licensed UK bank with the culture and spirit of a fast-moving, disruptive tech company. We’re a bank, but better: fairer, easier to use and designed to demystify money for everyone. We employ more than 3,000 people across our London, Southampton, Cardiff and Manchester offices.

Our technologists are at the very heart of Starling and enjoy working in a fast-paced environment that is all about building things, creating new stuff, and disruptive technology that keeps us on the cutting edge of fintech. We operate a flat structure to empower you to make decisions regardless of what your primary responsibilities may be, innovation and collaboration will be at the core of everything you do. Help is never far away in our open culture, you will find support in your team and from across the business, we are in this together!

The way to thrive and shine within Starling is to be a self-driven individual and be able to take full ownership of everything around you: From building things, designing, discovering, to sharing knowledge with your colleagues and making sure all processes are efficient and productive to deliver the best possible results for our customers. Our purpose is underpinned by five Starling values: Listen, Keep It Simple, Do The Right Thing, Own It, and Aim For Greatness.

Hybrid Working

We have a Hybrid approach to working here at Starling - our preference is that you're located within a commutable distance of one of our offices so that we're able to interact and collaborate in person. We don't like to mandate how much you visit the office and work from home, that's to be agreed upon between you and your manager.

Our Data Environment

Our Data teams are excited about the value of data within the business, powers our product decisions to improve things for our customers and enhance effective and agile decision making, regardless of what their primary tech stack may be. Hear from the team in our latest blogs or our case studies with Women in Tech.

We are looking for talented data professionals at all levels to join the team. We value people being engaged and caring about customers, caring about the code they write and the contribution they make to Starling. People with a broad ability to apply themselves to a multitude of problems and challenges, who can work across teams do great things here at Starling, to continue changing banking for good.

Requirements

We have built our entire banking platform in house and mostly in Java. We are looking for people who want to work on building the tooling that is used by our engineers on a daily basis.

We are looking for people who are truly full stack, and are as comfortable polishing their javascript front end as they are debugging the innards of their java applications database interactions, or standing up infrastructure with terraform. We are looking for people who can:

  • Design REST apis.
  • Code backend services, ideally using Java, or another other server side compiled language.
  • Develop modern front ends, ideally using React and Redux.
  • Get their code into the cloud and support it there, ideally on AWS.
  • Believe in clean coding, simple solutions, automated testing and continuous deployment.
  • Like to take ownership of a feature from the original idea through to live.
  • Think (like us) that a small number of empowered developers is the right way to deliver software.

Company Benefits

  • 33 days holiday (including flexible bank holidays)
  • An extra day’s holiday for your birthday
  • 16 hours paid volunteering time a year
  • Part-time and/or flexible hours available for most roles
  • Salary sacrifice, company enhanced pension scheme
  • Life insurance at 4x your salary
  • Hybrid/remote working
  • Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth including mental health support and cancer care. Partner benefits include discounts with Waitrose, Mr&Mrs Smith and Peloton
  • Generous family-friendly policies
  • Varied social groups set up and run by our employees
  • Perkbox membership giving access to retail discounts, a wellness platform for physical and mental health, and weekly free and boosted perks
  • Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work, Salary Sacrificed Gym partnerships and Electric Vehicle (EV) leasing

Full details are available on our careers site

Interview Process

Interviewing is a two way process and we want you to have the time and opportunity to get to know us, as much as we are getting to know you! Our interviews are conversational and we want to get the best from you, so come with questions and be curious. In general you can expect the below, following a chat with one of our Talent Team:

  • Stage 1 - 30 mins with one of the team
  • Stage 2 - Take home challenge
  • Stage 3 - 90 mins technical interview with two team members
  • Stage 3 - 45 min final with an executive and a member of the people team
Alex Yeates on cord
Message Alex Yeates at Starling Bank
Typically responds in an hour

What people are saying

2,000+

users joining every week

Oliver on cord

Oliver

Software Engineering Consultant
It's really easy to use, has a solid selection of jobs, and makes it helpful to direct message companies. The platform seems to offer a good range of opportunities while keeping the process simple and convenient.
November, 2025
David on cord

David

Lead Software Engineer
The platform allows you to create a professional CV, making the setup process simple and polished. The internal chat also provides an easy way to directly contact hiring companies, which makes communication much more efficient.
November, 2025
40,000+

open positions

Nicolae on cord

Nicolae

Senior Full Stack Developer
It is a great platform if you are looking for a job. It makes the search process straight forward and gives you access to solid opportunities.
November, 2025
3 million+

messages exchanged so far

Nicolae on cord

Nicolae

Senior Full Stack Developer
It is a great platform if you are looking for a job. It makes the search process straight forward and gives you access to solid opportunities.
November, 2025
78.88%

response rate from companies

Aarambha on cord

Aarambha

Associate Software Engineer
Absolutely amazing idea, the ability to see which recruiters are active makes finding opportunities very quick. There is a form of transparency built into the website that lacks in any other job searching platform.
August, 2025
Adam on cord

Adam

Senior Engineer
cord was great. Clean UI, easy to browse, and the data feature made it a breeze to quickly check whether my profile would match up well with a particular role. The messaging system made it easy to approach companies but also filter out unwanted requests.
August, 2025
4.6

score on Trustpilot

Talk directly to the people that matter

Join the hundred of thousands of people using cord to find work

Get started
 on cord
 on cord
 on cord
 on cord
 on cord
+424 joined last week
Moved to your Not right positions