Category Leader - D2C - Travel Accessories

ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITY EscPlan is building India's largest multi-brand travel and lifestyle platform.We are now expanding beyond luggage into adjacent accessories under our own licensed brands — HRX, Snitch, US Polo Assn., and Rare Rabbit. This is the first of many category launches planned on the platform, and we're hiring the person who will build the playbook for all of them. This is a founder-mode, 0→1 category-building role. You will own the full lifecycle of a new selection: spotting the white space, signing the brand, negotiating the commercials, getting it live on site, and turning on demand. You report directly into the category leadership and will work shoulder-to-shoulder with brand licensing, catalog/tech, supply chain, and growth teams. THE LEADERSHIP STANDARD At EscPlan, we call it SOLUTION LEADERSHIP. We don't hire category managers who only manage a P&L on a spreadsheet, and we don't hire growth marketers who only run ad accounts. We hire people who can sit across the table from a brand's leadership team to close a margin negotiation in the morning, and restructure a Google Performance Max campaign structure in the afternoon. This isn't about wearing multiple hats — it's about refusing to accept the artificial divide between sourcing selection and selling it. If a listing is live but not converting, you don't wait for the marketing team to fix it — you dig into the funnel yourself. If a brand negotiation stalls on margin, you don't escalate and wait — you find the structure that works for both sides. If you can build a 3-year accessories category roadmap on Monday and troubleshoot a Meta ad creative on Tuesday without losing sight of either, you'll fit right in. WHAT YOU'LL OWN Whitespace&Selection Strategy ● Identify gaps in EscPlan's current accessories, luggage, and travel-gear assortment relative to customer demand, competitor catalogs, and category trends. ● Build and maintain a prioritized pipeline of categories and sub-categories worth launching (e.g., travel accessories, lifestyle accessories, tech organizers, gifting, personal care travel kits). ● Define assortment architecture — price bands, style counts, and hero SKUs — for each new selection before it goes live. Brand Identification&Commercial Negotiation ● Identify and evaluate brand partners that can fill identified whitespace. ● Lead commercial negotiations end-to-end: margin structure, MOQs, credit terms, marketing support (MDF), exclusivity, and listing fees. ● Structure and close vendor/brand agreements in partnership with the licensing and legal teams, ensuring terms protect EscPlan's target category gross margin. Onboarding, Catalog & Listing Operations ● Own the end-to-end path from signed brand to live listing: SKU onboarding, content (images, copy, specs), pricing, and inventory setup on myescplan.com. ● Partner with catalog/tech teams to ensure fast, error-free go-lives and clean product data (titles, attributes, search tagging) for on-site discovery. ● Set up and track vendor SLAs for stock replenishment, returns, and quality — this is a build-the-moat role, not a hand-off-and-hope role. Demand Generation&Performance Marketing ● Own the demand plan for every new selection launch — from zero to a repeatable acquisition funnel. ● Plan, execute, and optimize performance marketing across Meta, Google (Search, PMax, Shopping), and AI/LLM-driven discovery and ad channels. ● Track and improve category-level CAC, ROAS, conversion rate, and payback period; run structured A/B tests on creative, pricing, and landing experience. ● Build always-on and launch-spike playbooks (new brand drops, seasonal moments) that other category launches on the platform can reuse. Category P&L&Reporting ● Own topline, gross margin, and contribution margin for the accessories vertical you launch. ● Run weekly business reviews covering sell-through, margin, marketing efficiency, and inventory health. ● Build the repeatable launch playbook — selection, negotiation, listing, and demand generation — that becomes the template for every future category EscPlan adds to the platform. WHO YOU ARE A builder who thrives on 0→1 ownership. You've run a D2C category (min 5 years), worked in brand partnerships/vendor management and led performance marketing for an e-commerce brand. You're comfortable being the person who identifies the opportunity, closes the deal, and then makes sure the ads convert. You live in data — DRR, sell-through, contribution margin, CAC and ROAS by channel — and you understand both sides of a negotiation table and a performance marketing dashboard. You think like a category founder, not a functional specialist. WHY THIS IS DIFFERENT Own a Category from Zero You're not managing an existing line — you're building the first of many new categories on the platform, with direct visibility to founders. Full-Stack Ownership Selection, negotiation, listing, and demand generation sit with one person — no hand-offs, no matrix. Backed&Scaling Part of a licensed multi-brand platform backed by Jungle Ventures, Fireside Ventures, and IndiGo Airlines, with HRX, US Polo Assn., Rare Rabbit, and Snitch already in-house. The Playbook You Build Scales This category launch becomes the template — get it right, and you're the person who owns every category launch that follows. This isn't just a category role. It's the chance to define how EscPlan launches every new selection on the platform.