About the Role
Lola Blankets is a fast-growing comfort and lifestyle brand on a mission to make the world a cozier place. As we expand into new customers and occasions, we’re looking for a Senior Manager, Dorm Category to help build Lola’s emerging college and dorm business.
Reporting to the Director of Emerging Categories & Markets, this role will be the day-to-day owner of Dorm, responsible for turning an emerging opportunity into a repeatable, scalable business. You’ll develop a deep understanding of the college customer and the people shopping for them, build the category’s go-to-market calendar, and coordinate across Marketing, Product, Creative, Ecommerce, Finance, Operations, and Retail to execute it.
Dorm is a uniquely seasonal business. Winning requires understanding not only what to sell, but when and how students discover, consider, and purchase products for college. This person will help Lola build that playbook from the ground up.
Core Responsibilities
Category Growth & Performance
- Own the day-to-day growth plan for Lola’s Dorm category, translating goals and KPIs set with the Director of Emerging Categories & Markets into an actionable roadmap
- Track performance across revenue, customer acquisition, conversion, product performance, channel mix, and other key metrics
- Build a deep understanding of the Dorm customer, including both college students and parents or gift-givers, and identify how their behaviors differ from Lola’s core customer
- Identify opportunities and performance gaps throughout the season and recommend actions to improve results
- Capture learnings throughout each back-to-school cycle to build a stronger and more repeatable playbook year over year
Seasonal Go-to-Market & Marketing
- Own the Dorm marketing calendar, working backwards from key moments including college decision season, graduation, summer planning, move-in, back-to-school, and gifting
- Partner with Integrated Marketing, Creative, Ecommerce, CRM, Media, Social, Influencer, PR, and Retail to develop a cohesive customer journey for the category
- Translate category needs into clear briefs and cross-functional asks, ensuring Dorm receives the right support during its most important commercial windows
- Develop and test Dorm-specific messaging, audiences, offers, bundles, landing experiences, and creative concepts
- Identify opportunities to reach college consumers through channels and behaviors that may sit outside Lola’s traditional marketing playbook
College Culture, Community & Partnerships
- Become an internal expert on college culture, Gen Z consumer behavior, dorm trends, and the broader back-to-school landscape
- Identify opportunities for campus activations, ambassador programs, creator partnerships, student organizations, gifting, sampling, and other community-led growth strategies
- Explore partnerships with universities, retailers, platforms, and complementary brands that can increase Lola’s relevance and reach with college consumers
- Partner with Social, Influencer, and Creative teams to ensure Lola shows up authentically in the channels and cultural spaces where college consumers spend their time
- Stay close to emerging trends across campuses, social platforms, competitors, and the broader youth lifestyle landscape
Product & Customer Insights
- Gather insights from customer feedback, performance data, social listening, competitive activity, and market research to inform the Dorm roadmap
- Partner with Product and Merchandising to identify assortment, color, size, bundle, price-point, and product opportunities specific to the college customer
- Help determine which products and propositions have the strongest potential to become repeatable drivers of the Dorm business
- Translate seasonal learnings into recommendations for the following year’s assortment and go-to-market strategy
Cross-Functional Execution
- Serve as the primary day-to-day point person for Dorm across Lola’s functional teams
- Partner closely with Product, Finance, Operations, Inventory Planning, Retail, and Marketing to ensure the category is prepared for highly concentrated seasonal demand
- Maintain the cross-functional roadmap and keep deliverables, decisions, and dependencies moving against key deadlines
- Build clear performance recaps and recommendations for the Director of Emerging Categories & Markets and senior leadership
This role will report to the Director of Emerging Categories & Markets. Preference for candidates in New York or Utah who can be hybrid in our offices 3 days per week.
Qualifications
- 5–7+ years of experience in brand marketing, integrated marketing, category management, ecommerce, consumer growth, or business strategy
- Experience building or growing a category, consumer segment, seasonal business, or emerging business unit
- Strong understanding of Gen Z consumers, culture, social media, creators, and community-led marketing
- Experience with highly seasonal businesses, back-to-school, retail, campus marketing, or youth-focused brands is a plus
- Strong commercial instincts and comfort using performance data to make decisions
- Demonstrated ability to manage complex cross-functional initiatives and execute against immovable seasonal deadlines
- Comfortable operating with ambiguity, testing quickly, and building processes where they do not yet exist
- Strong communicator who can turn category needs into clear briefs and actionable plans
- Excited by the opportunity to build a new customer and occasion for Lola from the ground up
What We Offer
- Competitive base salary and annual bonus based on company and individual performance
- 21 days paid vacation + all federal holidays
- Full health benefits (health, dental, vision, mental)
- 16 weeks paid birth parent leave; 8 weeks non-birth parent leave
- 55% off Lola Blankets for friends and family
- Opportunities for career growth within Lola Blankets
