Category Manager Animal Health & Nutrition

About Phileo by Lesaffre: Phileo operates as the strategic biotechnology business unit of Lesaffre, a historic global key player in yeast, fermentation science, and innovative nutrition infrastructure. Born in northern France in 1853, the family-owned multinational has scaled to encompass 11,000 specialists across more than 50 countries, achieving a global turnover of 3 billion euros. Within Phileo, we support global agritech partners—ranging from family farmers to major corporate feed industry players—to elevate animal health, welfare, and micro-organic biological productivity within maximum sustainability frameworks. By mastering complex microbiota and immunity parameters, we pioneer tailored probiotic alternatives that reduce antibiotics use to an absolute minimum across livestock, pets, and aquaculture operations.

Position Overview

We are seeking a highly analytical, business-fluent, and scientifically grounded Category Manager Animal Health & Nutrition to join our global product operations division under a permanent, hybrid remote model based out of Marcq-en-Barœul (Lille Metropolitan Area), France. In this executive-level category leadership seat, you will claim absolute product lifecycle governance, commercial go-to-market execution, and net profitability metrics for a dedicated portfolio of biotechnology and proprietary probiotic solutions. Shifting completely away from client helpdesk support ticketing, basic data entry transcription, or routine backend database administration, you will lead an active market discovery, product positioning, and cross-functional brand strategy laboratory—collaborating face-to-face with multi-national sales leaders and technical agricultural engineers. This position requires an agronomic or nutrition industry authority with 10+ years of product management experience who shapes market execution frameworks fluidly natively using Sales Representative paradigms, evaluates global feed market trends and competitive technologies cleanly, maps comprehensive pre- and post-launch action plans, and delivers expert technical marketing training sessions confidently to capture sustainable growth within a multicultural matrix environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Category Portfolio Profitability Governance: Oversee, monitor, and optimize the overarching commercial performance and profit margins of assigned product categories natively utilizing Sales Representative frameworks.
• Go-to-Market Expansion Engineering: Formulate, coordinate, and execute rigorous launch strategies, tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) to analyze commercial success and adjust pipeline positioning.
• Cross-Functional Value Optimization: Collaborate closely with scientific, R&D, regulatory compliance, and operations cells to continually refine product value propositions and tailor them to global feed players.
• Market Discovery & Insight Synthesis: Investigate and synthesize global market trends, customer pain points, and emerging competitor biotechnologies to discover portfolio value creation opportunities.
• Field Enablement Content Management: Construct, polish, and maintain specialized marketing toolkits, product manuals, and sales tool kits to support regional business developers.
• Technical Product Training: Design and conduct advanced internal and external technical training modules, educating sales personnel and enterprise customers on probiotic internals, microbiota, and immunity advantages.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• A minimum of 10+ years of proven, successful professional history operating in a Product Manager, Category Specialist, Brand Director, or identical commercial marketing capacity within the Animal Nutrition and Health industry.
• Advanced Multi-Channel Academic Foundations: Possess a formal Master’s degree in Marketing, Business Administration, or a technical engineering credential specializing within the Agriculture or Animal Sciences sector.
• Complete linguistic fluency in written and verbal English, paired with strong presentation strengths to communicate abstract scientific strategies to diverse matrix audiences.
• Demonstrated experience navigating full-cycle product portfolios (incorporating both ideation pre-launch and maturity optimization phases) inside a matrix corporate environment.
• Field Mobility Parameters: Absolute willingness and flexibility to travel up to 40% of operational time for international partner alignment, customer briefings, and corporate events.
• Location Context: Position is situated in Marcq-en-Barœul (immediate proximity to Lesaffre Group Headquarters in North France) under flexible hybrid remote parameters, open to individuals with disabilities.

Preferred Strategic Indicators (Nice to Have)

• Linguistic proficiency in conversational or professional French, serving as an operational advantage to interface with centralized corporate headquarters stakeholders.
• Grounded background managing probiotic, enzyme, yeast component, or advanced veterinary nutrition profiles.
• Advanced computing literacy across Microsoft Office 365 or similar cloud collaboration systems.

What We Offer

• Top Global Agritech Executive Compensation: A highly competitive, senior-level annual salary scale calibrated to experience and European benchmarks, supplemented by extensive corporate benefits.
• Hybrid remote workplace flexibility based in proximity to our beautiful campus in the Lille Metropolitan Area.
• Direct operational credentials built by heading a critical biotechnology category for a multi-billion euro industry pioneer.
• Comprehensive health care, wellness packages, and retirement structures calibrated to premium French employment standards.
• Access to global career progression avenues, corporate cross-functional mentorship arrays, and the opportunity to build eco-friendly tech solutions that preserve the planet.