Snr Marketing Manager Southern & East Africa

Overview New role leading the Marketing Function for our highest net revenue contributor in Africa. This Cluster includes 8 African countries contributing to Net Revenue of Africa Beverages & Snacks, and critical markets to turn-around to growth. Based on the importance & business magnitude of this Cluster, the Marketing function is optimized to have a senior marketing leader for this important Cluster. Lead stepping up 3YR Growth Plan and Annual operation plan to drive sustainable growth through building solid brands & innovating products in partnership with our bottlers for beverages and snacks Partnership with Marketing Director & relevant global & category teams, to ensure alignment on category strategy, brands plans, calendar planning, and innovations deployments. Responsibilities Leads, Manages, and Grows business profitably: Partner with the Marketing Director in developing BU Annual Operating Plan (AOP) and identify locally relevant activation initiatives to drive BU agenda and P&L. Drives and creates competitive gaps through business efficiency improvements at every step of the value chain. Makes business decisions for the category through a strong understanding of key issues and trends based on data analysis and insights. Influence & lead our bottler partners in executing our agreed upon and set AOP. Leads & Manages Cluster 1 FOBO Beverages businesses across Africa business unit: 8 markets: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa & DRC 2 Category: Beverages: Pepsi, Pepsi ZS, Mirinda, 7Up, Mountain Dew, Sting, Aquafina, Evervess. Snacks: Cheetos (Zimbabwe & Zambia) Business planning and goal alignment: Translate annual AOP roll-out opportunities into tangible, account specific marketing execution action plans to drive business growth and meet business targets (Volume & Share) while ensuring maximum effectiveness of execution. Leads and manages the brand Business Planning process with different stakeholders/ sector/ global & commercialization teams. Ensures that brand plans are executed on time and flawlessly on time in full by defining WHO, WHAT, WHEN. Leads total brand performance tracking & monthly brand audit with commercial team. Leadership of business teams and development of his/her cross-functional team: Sets challenging team goals and clear standards for success. Gives direct actionable feedback. Coaches' sub-ordinates (x2). Delight Consumers: Champions an intimate and holistic understanding of our consumers by simplifying and cutting through complexity in consumer/category understanding to translate into actionable brand insights. Works closely with commercial teams to ensure that there is an efficient customer & shopper marketing strategy that is based on key shopper research, insights, and learnings. Build Great Brands: Ensures that all brand activities are aligned with the Brand Essence and Vision. Ensures that our communication team is integrated and that all our partners are aligned. Leads Key brand affinity initiatives, and expansion plans. Responsible for Executing brand pack price architecture including new pack sizes initiatives across portfolio. Win with Customers: Provides strategic direction/input for development of Channel, Customer, and Field Sales strategies in line with business requirements. Constantly challenges the sales organization to ensure its results and effectiveness. Qualifications Relevant Marketing Honours Qualification or Degree. 7-9 year of experience in FMCG or Agency. Strong Marketing experience – with proven experience in brand building, meeting consumer needs, delivering successful communication programs, innovation launches and brand activations. Insight – demonstrable use of consumer, customer and business insights to shape strategic business and brand plans. Creativity – bring ideas that generate talkability and impact beyond the paid media invested. Lead X-agency teams – Ability to brief, manage and plan communications plans through to execution. Analytical skills – create robust analysis and meaningful insights to drive actions and highlight opportunities. Strong Leadership experience of managing & coaching multiple direct reports and the ability to inspire various stakeholders.