Lead Analyst, Category Management Analytics

The purpose of this role is data analysis/guided deliverable development in support of assessment/strategic deliverables.

Job Description:

FOR APPLICANTS TO BE CONSIDERED, THEY MUST BE ABLE TO BE ON-SITE 5 DAYS A WEEK IN ATLANTA.

Merkle's Commerce Analytics & Intelligence practice helps the world's largest retailers, brands, and marketplaces make sharper category decisions — what to carry, at what price, where to place it, and how to win the category against the market. We are moving from an embedded, staff-augmentation delivery model to a craft-led consultancy: specialists organized by discipline, US-onshore leadership in front of a global delivery engine, and value measured by the category outcomes we drive rather than the hours we bill.

The Lead Analyst, Category Management Analytics is a US-based onshore craft leader accountable for the category analytics that guide a merchant's assortment, pricing, and space decisions on one of our largest enterprise accounts. You pair fluent business acumen with a strong technical foundation — AI and machine learning, Python, SQL, and cloud computation — and you use both to own the category craft end to end: consumer decision trees and demand transferability, assortment optimization, pricing and promotion within the category, competitive and digital-shelf intelligence, and the line-review analytics that decide what stays, what goes, and what comes in.

What you will own

• Category decision partnership. Be the analytics voice in the merchant's category and line-review process — CDT and demand-transferability modeling, assortment gap and productivity analysis, price and promotion within the category, and the me-vs-market competitive read.

• The craft. Own category management analytics across the account: assortment optimization, space and localization, attribute-level demand, digital-shelf and competitive intelligence, and the data products that make category decisions faster and defensible.

• A blended pod. Lead a flat, project-based team from a single global Merkle pool — onshore category specialists in front, offshore engineering and data-science engines behind. Assemble teams around projects, not titles.

• Decisions you can prove. Run a value cadence tied to category outcomes: what the analysis recommended, what the merchant did, and what it returned — baselines stated honestly, targets met, tied to the line-review and business-review calendar.

• Growth. Convert delivered category wins into expansion across categories and into adjacent merchant decisions, feeding the account's forward pipeline with account and client-success leadership.

What you will bring

• Fluent business acumen. You read a P&L and a merchant's world with equal ease — you move between the four Ps and the levers behind them (traffic, transaction, units, conversion, margin), translate a business question into an analytical answer and back, and hold your own in a boardroom, not just a data review.

• Strong technical background. Deep, hands-credible expertise across the modern analytics and AI stack — AI and machine learning, Python, SQL, and cloud computation (e.g., GCP, AWS, or Azure and their data/ML services) — plus fluency in the market-leading tooling of the moment: LLMs and agentic/GenAI, semantic and decisioning layers, experimentation and attribution platforms, and modern BI. You do not have to be the builder on every project, but you must be credible enough to architect, challenge, and lead engineers and data scientists.

• 4+ years in category management, assortment, or merchandising analytics, with real depth in consumer decision trees / CDT, demand transferability, assortment optimization, and space/localization — having sat inside or directly alongside a merchant's category process, not just reporting on it.

• Line-review and category fluency. You know how vendors bring catalogs, how planners model attribute fit, how CDT and price/space trade-offs get decided, and how competitive and digital-shelf data change the call.

• Consulting and client leadership. You have led senior client relationships as a trusted advisor, set the analytical standard, and navigated a large, matrixed retail organization — comfortable proposing the path rather than executing a spec.

• Onshore/offshore delivery leadership. You have led blended teams across time zones and shores, translated business intent into a technical plan, and held delivery quality and dates without a heavy management layer beneath you.

• A build-and-shepherd temperament. You set standards, raise risks early, escalate rather than absorb, and grow people by the work they lead — not by title.

What sets the strongest candidates apart

• Direct experience inside a big-box or enterprise retailer's category management or merchandising organization.

• Experience building attribute-level or CDT-based decision models and taking them from analysis to a governed, repeatable capability.

• A track record of turning category analytics from a reporting service into a decision-driving partnership — and growing it.

How this role fits

This Lead Analyst sits within Merkle's DBT-aligned Commerce Analytics practice, reporting into practice leadership, with account P&L owned above the role. You lead your craft for the account and draw talent from — and contribute talent to — the shared global pool that serves Merkle's broader commerce portfolio. Success is a client who sees Merkle as their commerce-intelligence partner, a craft that delivers on a promise made and measured, and a team that grows because the work does.

At dentsu, we believe great work happens when we’re connected. Our way of working combines flexibility with in-person collaboration to spark ideas and strengthen our teams. Employees who live within a commutable distance of one of our hub offices, currently located in Chicago, metro Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York City, are required and expected to work from the office three days per week (two days per week for employees based in Los Angeles). Dentsu may designate other Hub offices at any time. Those who live outside a commutable range may be designated as remote, depending on the role and business needs. Regardless of your work location, we expect our employees to be flexible to meet the needs of our Company and clients, which may include attendance in an office.

The annual salary range for this position is $72,000-$110,000. Placement within the salary range is based on a variety of factors, including relevant experience, knowledge, skills, and other factors permitted by law.

Benefits available with this position include:

• Medical, vision, and dental insurance,

• Life insurance,

• Short-term and long-term disability insurance,

• 401k,

• Flexible paid time off,

• At least 15 paid holidays per year,

• Paid sick and safe leave, and

• Paid parental leave.

Dentsu also complies with applicable state and local laws regarding employee leave benefits, including, but not limited to providing time off pursuant to the Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, in accordance with its plans and policies.  For further details regarding Dentsu benefits, please visit www.dentsubenefitsplus.com.

To begin the application process, please click on the “Apply” button at the top of this job posting. Applications will be reviewed on an ongoing basis, and qualified candidates will be contacted for next steps.

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Location:

USA - Remote - Georgia

Brand:

Ugam

Time Type:

Full time

Contract Type:

Permanent