Category manager – Dental Plan

Job Purpose / The Role

Portman Dentex is hiring a Senior Commercial Manager to lead its Dental Plan category. Reporting to the Chief Growth Officer, this role sits at the heart of one of PortmanDentex’s most important commercial priorities and represents a significant portion of annual revenue and is essential for continued strategic growth. The incumbent will drive the strategic growth of the category, covering growth initiatives, supplier partnerships, commercial performance, clinical engagement and marketing initiatives. The role combines category strategy with hands‑on delivery to ensure scalable, ethical and commercially sound implementation across the business and represents an exciting opportunity to deliver a robust growth agenda in a sector that has historically been focused on administration rather than growth.

Key Accountabilities

• Own the category strategy, growth roadmap and performance for the Dental Plans category across the PortmanDentex network.
• Identify and prioritise opportunities to grow the category through acquisition and retention – e.g. more patients signing up and fewer leaving.
• Act as the internal category expert, providing insight and guidance to senior stakeholders across the business.
• Develop a set of initiatives and plans that will drive performance across key themes:
  • Acquisition and activation – develop marketing and growth plans and work with practices to drive sign‑ups.
  • Lifecycle management – ensure good adoption of dental plans and high usage.
  • Customer retention – understand and develop strategies that will keep more customers over time.
• Translate strategic priorities into clear commercial initiatives and implementation plans delivered by central teams (Marketing, Digital, Technology, Procurement, Operations) and across practices.
• Develop a clear customer‑management focus to ensure ongoing management of Dental Plan customers.
• Work closely with clinical leads, practice teams and other SMEs to support implementation of category initiatives and drive practice performance.
• Develop ongoing tracking and reporting of plans and activities to understand current performance and drive growth.
• Design and execute targeted patient acquisition and re‑engagement campaigns, including lapsed patient outreach, referral schemes, seasonal campaigns and segmented lifecycle communications via CRM.
• Develop strategic thinking and the longer‑term roadmap for a PortmanDentex‑branded (white‑label) plan.
• Develop and manage strategic supplier partnerships that support category innovation, capability development and commercial growth.
• Work with procurement to maximise value, training support and practice adoption from supplier relationships.
• Develop clear insight into the drivers of growth and performance and build reporting and monitoring to identify trends, gaps and opportunities.
• Use data and insight to inform commercial decision‑making and prioritise improvement initiatives.
• Track delivery metrics and benefit realisation to ensure category initiatives deliver measurable impact.
• Work collaboratively with Operations, Marketing, BI, Procurement and Clinical teams to deliver initiatives that support category performance.
• Support marketing campaigns, training initiatives and reporting frameworks that drive patient engagement and category growth.
• Travel across the UK and Ireland will be required.

Skills & Experience (Essential)

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant discipline (Business, Commerce, Marketing, Economics, Finance, Life Sciences / Health Sciences).
• Deep commercial and customer experience in product and category management, having owned products and driven growth.
• Specific experience in customer management and retention plans is beneficial but not essential.
• Experience in category management, programme management or commercial project delivery, ideally within a structured or blue‑chip organisation.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver cross‑functional initiatives and drive implementation across multiple stakeholders.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to engage effectively with clinicians, operational teams and senior leaders.
• Strong commercial awareness and analytical capability, with the ability to interpret data and drive performance improvement.
• Excellent communication, organisation and delivery skills.

Skills & Experience (Desired)

• Exposure to the healthcare, dental or medical device sector.
• Experience supporting the development of service lines, treatment pathways or healthcare categories.
• Familiarity with data analysis and reporting tools (e.g. Power BI).
• Experience working within multi‑site service or healthcare environments.
• Experience working with premium, clinically‑led services or high‑value treatment pathways.
• Experience working in a regulated business.

What Success Looks Like In The First 12 Months

• A clear category growth strategy and delivery roadmap established and agreed with senior stakeholders.
• Strong engagement with clinicians, regional clinical leads and practice teams across the network.
• Tangible improvements in category performance.
• Effective supplier partnerships delivering innovation, training and commercial value.
• Scalable plan sign‑up, onboarding and retention processes embedded across the practice network.
• Clear performance reporting and insight frameworks in place to support ongoing category development.

Benefits

• Wellbeing support: 24/7 Employee Assistance Programme, GP service and an in‑house Mental Health First Aider programme.
• Bonus scheme based on business performance, with additional bonus linked to category growth.
• Extra leave: birthday off and option to buy three more days.
• Family support: enhanced maternity/paternity leave.
• Financial security: life assurance and pension scheme.

Equal Employment Opportunity & Additional Information

We are an equal‑opportunity employer and value diversity, equity and inclusion in our workplace. We are committed to creating an environment of mutual respect and are dedicated to providing equal employment opportunities regardless of race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, pregnancy or maternity, marital or civil partner status, disability, age or nationality.

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