Senior Category Manager Culinary, Europe

Can you bring together diverse teams, inspire action, and translate category strategies into measurable business results? IFF is a global leader in flavors, fragrances, food ingredients and health & biosciences. We deliver sustainable innovations that elevate everyday products. Taste: Crafting unique, technology-enabled flavor designs that define the identity of food and beverage brands, shape trends in flavor creation, and fuel market success. This is a hybrid role that can be based in the following locations – Hilversum, Netherlands; Barcelona, Spain; Dijon, France; Haverhill, UK; Milan, Italy or Oberhausen, Germany. Join a collaborative, innovative, and solution-oriented team where your expertise contributes to meaningful products used around the world. Your potential is our inspiration. Where You’ll Make a Difference The Taste Europe Marketing team at IFF is seeking a Senior Category Marketing Manager to lead our Culinary category. In this highly visible individual contributor role, you will drive cross-functional collaboration to develop and execute a three-year category growth strategy that accelerates sales and strengthens IFF's position in the market. You will be responsible for translating strategic priorities into impactful marketing initiatives and tactics aligned with the broader Taste commercial strategy. This role requires a strategic thinker and influential partner who can effectively engage stakeholders across Sales, Innovation, Creation & Design, Consumer Insights, and Communications. Success in this position depends on your ability to build alignment, inspire action, and turn strategic plans into measurable business outcomes. You will also play a key role in creating compelling, insight-driven marketing content that resonates with customers and supports commercial growth. While positioned within the Taste business, the role offers broad exposure and collaboration across multiple business units. The Senior Category Marketing Manager reports directly to the Regional Marketing Director, EAME Lead the Multidisciplinary Culinary Category Team in the development of a Category plan. Build on industry insights, business strategies and overall capabilities to define key initiatives, tactics and resources required to grow and defend IFF business in the categories. Own the growth of the categories in the region, connecting with relevant stakeholders and different areas in the organization to lead and/or execute the Category plan actions. Align and drive the roll-out of the Category plan with sales and technical teams in EUROPE. Work with the other function within Marketing, IC&D and Product experience to define key priorities for Culinary in the region Monitor and report on the execution of the category plan to the EUROPE leadership teams on a monthly basis. Track progress against category financials targets, opportunity pipeline targets and milestones for key initiatives. Highlight corrective actions required and decisions to be made. Support key customer engagements. Leverage interaction with external and internal stakeholders to collect industry insights, derive implications for the business and recommend actions to support our growth ambitions in the Culinary Category. What Makes You the Right Fit Minimum 10+ years of business experience (marketing, sales, business development) in B2C or B2B environments, preferably in the Culinary market. Strong communication skills. Proven ability to develop and deliver impactful marketing communications to customers Excellent listening, analytical and influencing skills. Demonstrated ability to collect insights (qualitative/quantitative), generate conclusions and drive discussions with key stakeholders to develop and implement appropriate solutions Capability to digest marketing information from numerous sources as well as data sources, create logical arguments and apply it relevantly, to determine direction and future idea focus. Demonstrate engagement,