Location: Brussels, Berlin, London, Madrid, Warsaw, Milan, Athens
Role PurposeThe Director, Innovation – Category is accountable for the end‑to‑end execution and scale‑up of large‑scale category innovation across multiple markets.
This role translates Innovation priorities into disciplined execution, ensuring projects progress from concept to market launch with strong consumer relevance, operational readiness, and Commercialisation excellence.
The role acts as the central category execution lead, working across Innovation Hub, GDI, Packaging, Supply Chain, Marketing, and Markets to ensure innovation delivers growth, efficiency, and system leverage, while enabling strong in‑market execution through FU / Market Innovation Directors.
What You Will Do For UsCategory Innovation execution Leadership
- * Lead E2E execution of assigned category innovation programs ( e.g. Present-forward , Y+1+2 priorities)
- Translating category innovation strategy intent into executable, scalable innovation roadmaps.
- Lead commercialization, and cross‑market deployment of large‑scale category innovations.
- Ensure category innovation programs are designed for scale, repeatability, and cross‑market deployment.
- Working closely with FU / Market innovation to ensure launch readiness aligned with commercial go-to-market timelines and operational capability.
Program & Project Management Excellence
- * Act as the single point of accountability for execution of assigned large‑scale or multi‑market category innovation initiatives.
- Orchestrate E2E technical execution working closely with Marketing, R&D, Innovation Hub Supply Chain, Quality, Procurement, Bottling partners, Regulatory, and Finance.
- Coordinate feasibility assessments, trials, validations, and readiness activities.
- Own execution risk, interdependencies, and trade‑offs at category level.
- Drive speed‑to‑market while maintaining required standards for quality, cost, safety, and brand integrity.
- Escalate issues with clear options and recommendations within governance frameworks.
Governance & Portfolio Discipline
- * Apply and enforce stage‑gate governance from central kick‑off through local gate processes.
- Ensure category innovation initiatives remain within portfolio guardrails, preventing fragmentation and non‑scalable execution.
- Provide structured reporting on progress, risks, and value delivery.
- Contribute fact‑based execution insights to portfolio prioritization and trade‑off decisions.
- Govern technical and category coherence across markets to reduce SKU complexity and improve manufacturing and supply chain efficiency.
- Own post‑launch performance tracking and define structured scalability plans for large‑scale innovations
Stakeholder & Market Interface
- * Act as the central category counterpart to Category Marketing, innovation Hub and GDI for assigned innovations.
- Maintain alignment between category strategic priorities and market implementation realities.
- Enable strong in‑market execution by providing clear category intent, execution frameworks, and readiness support
- Support Markets during launch preparation and develop scalability plan across EU Markets
- Provide markets with clear execution frameworks, readiness requirements, and decision guidance
- Support markets during launch preparation and post‑launch scale plan
Continuous Improvement & Capability building
- * Capture and share execution learnings, best practices, and scalable delivery models across categories.
- Contribute to strengthening innovation execution discipline, effectiveness, and efficiency across the system.
- Stay at the forefront of emerging Trends category, product, packaging, and business model innovations, identifying opportunities for future scale.
Qualification & Experience
- * 5–8+ years of experience in innovation, commercialisation, supply chain, R&D, or category leadership roles.
- Proven experience delivering large‑scale, multi‑market innovation initiatives.
- Strong understanding of category strategy, portfolio management, and system economics.
- Demonstrated ability to manage complex cross‑functional dependencies and execute within governance frameworks.
- Strong analytical, problem‑solving, and execution mindset, with comfort operating in ambiguity.
Education
- * Bachelor’s degree in engineering, Science, Business Administration or a related field is required. An advanced degree is preferred; however, demonstrated leadership impact and relevant experience will be strongly valued.
Travel Requirements
- * Up to 10–25 % travel, subject to business needs.
What We Offer
- * A unique opportunity to shape and deliver category innovation at scale across Europe.
- High exposure to enterprise innovation agendas and cross‑system leadership.
- A role at the intersection of strategy and execution, with clear impact on growth and efficiency.
- A diverse, multicultural environment with strong opportunities for professional growth.
