Senior Category Development Manager

Company Overview

Synergy Flavors, part of the Carbery Group, is more than just a leading international supplier of ingredients to the global food and beverage industry—we’re a team driven by purpose. Our vision is simple yet powerful: enriching lives through healthier and tastier foods.

We believe great flavor starts with great people. That’s why we’re committed to hiring creative, passionate individuals who want to make a real impact. With deep expertise across food, beverage, and nutrition, our teams develop high-quality taste solutions that inspire innovation and elevate everyday experiences.

Your Role in Synergy's Success

Department: Marketing and Business Development
Location: Wauconda, Illinois
Work Arrangement: Hybrid
Reporting To: Associate Director of Business Development

As Senior Category Development Manager – Beverage, you will lead the development of our beverage category growth strategy, identifying where we should compete, which opportunities we should prioritize and how we can turn market and customer insight into sustainable commercial growth.

This is a highly visible, customer-facing position at the intersection of commercial strategy, innovation and market development. You will partner closely with Sales, R&D and Marketing, engage directly with beverage manufacturers and industry partners, and help determine how we focus our capabilities and innovation priorities around the most attractive market opportunities.

For an experienced flavors or ingredients professional, this is an opportunity to move beyond supporting a category and play an active role in shaping its commercial direction.

How You Will Contribute

• Lead the development and execution of Beverage category growth strategies, with a focus on identifying, prioritizing, and pursuing attractive customer and market opportunities.
• Serve as the voice of the market, translating consumer, customer, and industry insights into actionable recommendations that shape value propositions, capability development, and innovation priorities.
• Partner with Sales, R&D, and Marketing to strengthen customer relationships, support strategic account development, and deliver market development initiatives that create value for both existing and prospective customers.
• Identify, cultivate, and advance select customer opportunities by building relationships and guiding early-stage commercial engagement before transitioning ongoing account ownership to the appropriate Account Manager.
• Explore industry engagement activities such as partnerships, new business models, and external collaborations to expand Synergy's role within the beverage ecosystem.
• Build and leverage a strong network across customers, industry organizations, and market influencers to uncover emerging opportunities, enhance Synergy's visibility, and serve as a beverage industry subject matter expert in customer meetings, business discussions, conferences, and other external forums.
• Develop customer-facing presentations, category insights, sales tools, and training materials that strengthen commercial effectiveness and customer engagement.
• Collaborate across the global organization to share market intelligence, best practices, and commercial insights.

Essential Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business/Marketing (with strong technical acumen) or Food Science, Chemistry 

• 8+ years of related experience in marketing, sales market management, business development, or commercial strategy within the food ingredients and/or flavour industry.
• Demonstrated success developing and executing growth strategies that have delivered measurable commercial results.
• Experience leading cross-functional initiatives and influencing stakeholders across multiple functions.

• Up to 30% travel

Desirable Requirements

• Direct beverage industry experience, particularly experience marketing ingredients, flavours, or solutions to beverage manufacturers.

• Demonstrated ability to build and leverage relationships across beverage manufacturers, brands, suppliers, and industry organizations.

• Experience applying consumer, market and customer insight to category strategy, innovation or commercial development

• Experience presenting to customers, industry groups, and senior business stakeholders.

Salary Range : $125,000 - $169,000

The actual compensation that you will be offered will depend on a variety of factors including geography, skills and abilities, education, experience and other relevant factors. This role will remain open until filled.

For more information on our benefits click here.

Our Commitment to our People

We are a diverse and growing workforce of over 1,000 people across eight countries globally. As we continue to grow, we want to ensure that Carbery Group continues to be a place where people are supported to develop and feel that they can do their best work. We are committed to driving growth, developing future capability and delivering results through our dedicated teams.

We offer competitive salaries, comprehensive benefits, and an inclusive workplace where your skills, perspectives, and experience help shape the future of our industry. Join us and be part of a team that values collaboration and makes a meaningful impact - from local communities to global markets.

Carbery Group is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to fostering a supportive work environment.

Across our global organisation, we employ 1000 people in 8 countries – and we are growing. From production specialists to R&D experts, finance, quality, digital, marketing, sales and so much more, see what opportunities await you with Carbery and Synergy.

About Us

Our Work Experience is the combination of everything that's unique about us: our culture, our core values, our company meetings, our commitment to sustainability, our recognition programs, but most importantly, it's our people. Our employees are self-disciplined, hard working, curious, trustworthy, humble, and truthful. They make choices according to what is best for the team, they live for opportunities to collaborate and make a difference, and they make us the #1 Top Workplace in the area.