Purpose & Overall Relevance for the Organization:

Responsible for supporting the Senior Director Business Units Football, Basketball, Motorsport & Golf defining Emerging Markets’ short and medium-term objectives for the Football Footwear and Hardware business. Implement global Go-To-Market strategies in a regionally relevant way, working closely with each cluster’s Category Management team, considering different consumer needs and distribution channels. Responsible for building a product range for the dedicated Category that fulfils the needs of the EM Hub and Clusters, which is competitive in terms of completeness, structure, price and margin.

Key Responsibilities:

• Support the generation and execution of a 3-5 year category plan for the assigned business segment, based on overall EM strategic business plan and balanced with the needs of the adidas brand horizontally.
• Assemble a compelling, commercial, viable range/concept selection for the assigned business segments, to support the overall brand strategy, purpose and business direction for each Cluster within Emerging Markets.
• Deliver the seasonal product range through the respective Cluster Category Management leads (including a “Category Power Pack” selection), balancing both brand and commercial considerations and supporting the overall business strategy.
• Coordinate and drive Special Make-Up (SMU) brief submissions from Clusters to the Global BU.
• Provide EM BU’s input to the Global HQ (consolidated from all Clusters) to include clear and substantive insight (future trends and incremental business opportunities) and input on key concepts and category activation plans.
• Maintain and deliver regular analyses on the category sell-in, sell-out, margin, article productivity ensuring they meet the financial expectations set in the short and mid-term goals across all channels, segments in EM Clusters.
• Provide support to the Sr. BU Director in aligning net sales objectives, margins, pricing, range architecture with each Cluster.

KPIs:

• EM Brand Health KPIS (Brand momentum, Net Promoter Score, Spontaneous purchase intent)
• Business segment Market Share vs. plan in each Cluster within Emerging Markets
• EM Direct Business segment Contribution vs Plan
• EM Category Range Efficiency, SKU targets, Pricing targets
• EM Net Sales, Category growth, Key Franchise growth/share of NS and Go-in Margin

Key Relationships:

• Cluster CTC/Category Management
• EM Hub CtC and MOPS team
• Global Football BU
• EM Business Intelligence teams; Strategy Teams & Demand Planning teams
• EM DTC, WHS and E-com teams

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Passionate about sports, preferably Football with product-ranging specific knowledge.
• Consumer-focused with deep product and range understanding with an excellent ability to balance brand and commercial aspects and build channel specific GTM solutions
• Cross-functional marketing knowledge and market experience; strong understanding of Retail, eCom and WHS channels in sporting goods, fashion or other youth culture brands.
• Ability to guide optimal range building as per segmentation strategy and option plan (product type, gender, price points) for different channels.
• Proactive mindset (engaging & impact-oriented), ability to think end-to-end.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with different international cultures.
• Good organizational and time management skills.
• Commercial acumen: numerical and analytical skills.
• Good communication (both written and verbal), presentation and facilitation skills (small and large groups).
• Ability to travel, domestic or international, as required.

Requisite Education and Experience / Minimum Qualifications:

• University degree in business, ideally with Marketing and sales focus or equivalent professional experience.

• 3+ years Merchandising experience including Sales and Retail exposure, ideally in sporting goods, fashion or other youth culture brands.

• Fluent English (verbal and written).

• Proficient in MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) as well as Power BI tools.

• Proficiency with AI and its applications to category management/merchandising is a plus. AT ADIDAS WE HAVE A WINNING CULTURE. BUT TO WIN, PHYSICAL POWER IS NOT ENOUGH. JUST LIKE ATHLETES OUR EMPLOYEES NEED MENTAL STRENGTH IN THEIR GAME. WE FOSTER THE ATHLETE’S MINDSET THROUGH A SET OF BEHAVIORS THAT WE WANT TO ENABLE AND DEVELOP IN OUR PEOPLE AND THAT ARE AT THE CORE OF OUR UNIQUE COMPANY CULTURE: THIS IS HOW WE WIN WHILE PLAYING FAIR.

• COURAGE: Speak up when you see an opportunity; step up when you see a need..

• OWNERSHIP: Pick up the ball. Be proactive, take responsibility and follow-through.

• INNOVATION: Elevate to win. Be curious, test and learn new and better ways of doing things.

• TEAMPLAY: Win together. Work collaboratively and cultivate a shared mindset.

• INTEGRITY: Play by the rules. Hold yourself and others accountable to our company’s standards.

• RESPECT: Value all players. Display empathy, be inclusive and show dignity to all.

At adidas, we strongly believe that embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into our culture and talent processes gives our employees a sense of belonging and our brand a real competitive advantage.

– Culture Starts With People, It Starts With You –

By recruiting talent and developing our people to reflect the rich diversity of our consumers and communities, we foster a culture of inclusion that engages our employees and authentically connects our brand with our consumers.

Job Title: Manager Category Management Football EM

Brand: Location: Cape Town TEAM: Merchandising & Planning State: WC Country/Region: ZA Contract Type: Full time Number: 547676 Date: Sep 1, 2026