Senior Manager, Founder's Office (Category Management)

Senior Manager, Founder's Office (Category Management)

Location: Nine Elms, London, Full-time

About Zapp

Zapp is London's leading premium convenience retail platform. Founded in 2020, our vision is to disrupt the multi-trillion dollar convenience retail market, currently dominated by major players, by developing best-in-class customer-centric technology and fulfilment solutions. Zapp partners with some of the world's leading brands to deliver an exclusive range of hand-picked products 24/7, delivered in minutes.

About the Role

This role sits at the sharp end of Zapp's commercial operation. As Senior Manager, Founder's Office (Category Management), you will own a significant portion of the range, the supplier relationships that underpin it and the commercial performance it delivers. You will operate with the autonomy of a category lead and the access of someone embedded in the Founder's Office: close to the strategy, visible to leadership and expected to drive outcomes without being directed

This is the role for someone who has outgrown a junior buying or category position and is ready to step into genuine ownership, or who has come from a high-performance commercial environment and wants to apply that edge in a business where the pace is faster and the impact is more immediate. You will manage your own categories end-to-end, lead supplier negotiations, contribute to range strategy and work closely with the Director to raise the commercial bar across the team.

Key Responsibilities

Category Ownership

• Own a defined category portfolio end-to-end: ranging decisions, supplier negotiations, promotional planning and commercial performance

• Build and maintain a range that is curated, competitive and margin-optimised, making clear calls on ranging based on data and commercial judgement

• Lead range reviews for your categories with rigour: using performance data, customer insight and competitor benchmarking to drive continuous improvement

• Identify NPD opportunities and new supplier partnerships, taking them from identification through to ranging and launch independently

Supplier Relationships and Negotiation

• Own the supplier relationships across your category portfolio, acting as the primary commercial contact for day-to-day trading and negotiations

• Lead trading term negotiations for your categories: driving improvements on cost, promotional investment, exclusivity and payment terms

• Develop joint business plans with key suppliers that set shared targets, embed accountability and create a clear roadmap for growth

• Manage supplier performance against agreed standards, resolving issues quickly and with authority

Commercial Performance

• Own the P&L for your categories: tracking margin, availability, waste and sell-through and driving improvement across all levers

• Build and maintain category performance reporting using Zapp's internal data infrastructure, surfacing risks and opportunities in real time

• Work closely with Pricing to ensure your category economics are optimised, and with Marketing to develop customer-facing activations that drive conversion

• Contribute to the wider commercial planning cycle: quarterly reviews, OKR setting and cross-functional prioritisation

Team and Cross-Functional Contribution

• Contribute actively to cross-functional projects across Marketing, Operations, Product and Finance, representing Category Management and keeping commercial priorities visible

• Identify and lead process improvements within the team, including opportunities to use AI and automation to improve reporting, forecasting and supplier management workflows

What We're Looking For

• 4-7 years of experience in category management, buying or a senior commercial role, with direct ownership of supplier relationships and category P&L

• A track record of delivering commercial results: range improvements, negotiation wins, margin gains or availability improvements that show up in the numbers

• Strong analytical capability and confidence working with data to make and defend commercial decisions

• Experience at a high-performing retailer, grocery or e-commerce business (Ocado, Amazon, a major supermarket or similar) or a fast-scaling consumer start-up

• A proactive, self-directed operator who identifies what needs doing, takes ownership of it and drives it through without needing to be managed

• A clear and confident communicator: effective in supplier negotiations, cross-functional forums and leadership updates

• A genuine interest in applying AI and automation to commercial processes, with any hands-on experience seen as a strong advantage

• Familiarity with Looker or other BI tools is a strong advantage

Benefits

This is a genuinely differentiated opportunity: direct access to the Founder and Senior Leadership Team of one of London's most ambitious retail platforms, with real ownership of a function that sits at the core of the business. Your work will be visible, consequential and fast-moving.

We also offer:

• Competitive salary & equity package

• 25 days holiday per year (plus all bank holidays)

• Private Health Insurance

• Extended sick pay and maternity/paternity leave pay

• Cycle to work scheme