DESCRIPTION

Amazon strives to be Earth's most customer-centric company where people can find and discover virtually anything they want to buy online. By giving customers more of what they want - low prices, vast selection, and convenience - Amazon continues to grow and evolve as a world-class e-commerce platform.

Amazon is looking for an experienced, talented and enthusiastic Category Manager for Softlines Private Brands (SPB) to manage selection expansion for Private Brands business for Softlines in Japan. As a category manager, you will be responsible for 1) developing our domestic PB business as Amazon-exclusive vendor owned brands under Amazon Accelerator program and 2) managing Private Brand with the best possible commercial and legal terms in that category. You will also develop a partnerships with retail category teams in Japan and the various functions both in Japan and US.

Private Brands is a long-term growth opportunity for Amazon. So far, Amazon SPB has launched brands (Amazon Essentials, iris & lilly and goodthreads) as Amazon owned brands within Softlines.

The ideal candidate should be passionate about products, have strong product development and process design skills as well as outstanding project management abilities. The position also requires you to work voluntarily in a fast paced, highly demanding and ambiguous environment. The successful candidate would possess great business judgment, with a track record of strong project delivery, commercial negotiations and relationship management along with the ability to understand things deeply. Additionally, this position involves working with multiple stakeholders (US Private Brands team, product development, quality and compliance, marketing, legal, supply chain, among others), and hence we need strong stakeholder management capabilities and ownership with great bias for action in getting things done themselves.

Main responsibilities include:
- Planning: Develop and manage subcategories under Amazon's PB/Accelerator. Maintain the P&L and develop annual and quarterly category strategic plans.
- Product Development: Manage the entire physical product lifecycle in Japan, from strategic activities to tactical implementation, including product portfolio idea generation. Work closely with the sourcing team to identify vendors and negotiate contracts to ensure best quality and costs. Support global product development team in building comprehensive global selection and manage new launches
- Business management: Ensure continuous growth of our existing business by owning pricing and promotions strategy, working with marketing team to improve product content and visibility; and managing stock availability by coordinating teams across the business to bring the product to the customer
- Supply chain management: Partner with supply chain management team to improve product availability, reduce costs, and minimize our working capital investment. Work together with system teams to identify main opportunities for process automation and efficiency gains
- Communications: Influence large number stakeholders across the business, both in Japan and in global teams; work closely with the team members and other business groups to deliver results, and be comfortable in presenting projects and results to senior leadership on a regular basis. The successful candidate will be an experienced team player who is motivated by an entrepreneurial, fast-paced and highly collaborative environment.
- Process development: Closely communicate with global team and implement the newest PB/Accelerator process/mechanism into JP.

The position is based in Japan and requires both domestic and overseas business trips.

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BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

• BA/BS degree
• 3+ years relevant experience in vendor management, business development
• Fluency in both Japanese and English
• Superior problem-solving and analytical skills
• Experience with working with international teams with multiple stakeholders
• Ability to study trends, customer behavior and shopping patterns and convert them into product and program initiatives

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• MBA preferred
• Experience in managing innovation projects from concept to commercialization
• Established relationships with innovation labs and research groups
• Experience driving a digital business
• Strong technical aptitude with web-based tools and intermediate to advanced proficiency of the Microsoft Office Suite