Senior Director, Global Development & Innovation, Sprite and Schweppes

POSITION OVERVIEW:

This new Senior Director position leads the global innovation and technical strategy and drives top and bottom-line growth for core sparkling brands, Sprite and Schweppes, within the Global Development & Innovation, Sparkling Flavors Category team.  Sprite and Schweppes are expected to deliver against an aggressive growth target in the coming 3-5 years, necessitating strong technical governance on the core portfolios and the development and execution of a robust, globally scalable and competitively advantaged innovation pipeline, expected to contribute significant incremental growth.  Sprite’s formula portfolio is present in nearly all global markets, while Schweppes represents a highly diversified portfolio by region and a complex ownership dynamic, requiring special diligence to IP, legal and competitive considerations.

This role will work in partnership with the Global Brand VPs, OU Marketing Leads, Strategy, Human Insights, Supply Chain, Research to Experimentation, Finance and others to create and execute against E2E technical plans for innovation, continuity, and productivity.  This role will require strong innovation capabilities, ability to leverage consumer and market insights, marketing data and analytics and technical expertise to co-create novel consumer centric product propositions.  This role is responsible for leading an R&D and TI&SC network of SME’s across Product Development, SRA, QSE, SC, FM, CPS, TCR, Packaging and Equipment to ensure seamless implementation plans across the global system.  Additionally, this role will directly lead a team of 4, including product development scientists and SME’s. 

For Sprite, the role will hold accountabilities for all reformulations on EP40 top markets, ensuring adherence to product guardrails and testing protocols, as well as trouble-shooting and scale up support for CPS on internally manufactured beverage bases, and direct partnership with FM and Flavor R&D on global Sprite flavor management.  For Schweppes, this role will work with a complex network of individuals across functions with aim to drive global product experience consistency and game changing innovation (including product and package) and creating the future vision for transformational growth in the Adult Sparkling space. 

This role is a key member of the extended GDI leadership team.

FOCUS AREAS:

Key areas of focus of this role can be summarized as follows:

• Develop innovation strategies (product, package, equipment) to deliver 3-5 year pipelines for growth, productivity and continuity plans for Sprite and Schweppes
• Challenge the status quo, bringing in ‘out of the box’ thinking and external lens to identify breakthrough innovation, processes and tools in accordance with brand and technical strategies
• Coordinate and track key competitive trends, threats, technologies to inform technical and innovation strategies
• Ensure appropriate routines and connectivity with Regional GDI categories, RtE and TI&SC community, and Marketing.
• Leverage project management routines to deliver global/regional/local innovations
• Ensure technical efforts on Sprite and Schweppes are informed by consumer insights, business models and important technology trends to deliver advantaged solutions
• Establish and maintain process and routines for cross functional inclusion in technical innovation strategy development, planning and project execution, including core product governance  
• Monitor external environment to identify threats and opportunities for each category
• Define R&D resourcing requirements to deliver global and regional pipelines
• Lead a geographically dispersed resources to deliver Innovation, continuity and productivity initiatives.

KEY SUCCESS PARAMETERS

Work Focus

People Leadership

• Build, lead and develop a highly engaged global network drive global innovation and technical programs
• Responsible for direct leadership of a team of 4 product development associates, as well as acting as a global network leader within the Global Sparkling Flavors GDI, TI&SC, and cross-functional network.

Stakeholder Management

• Build relationships and networks with key stakeholders across the organization.
• Facilitate the identification of timelines, dashboards and financial scorecards for each initiative to keep Global Sparkling Flavors Category Leadership current on progress and potential red flags.

Technical Leadership

• Develop and implement long term and annual business plans and ensure successful delivery
• Play a key role as a leadership member of the Technical Community, providing thought leadership, strong business acumen and accountability for delivering commitments to the business on behalf of GDI and broader TI&SC function
• Partner in the development of key technical talent and succession planning processes
• Partnering with the R&D Leads, ensure external connection with Bottlers and suppliers to understand needs and share plans, to fully leverage their capability and support internal stake holders in trade associations to address industry challenges.

Advanced Collaboration

• Ability to develop and maintain value added relationships with multiple constituencies including Coca-Cola system leaders and associates; bottlers; customers; suppliers; external stakeholders at multiple levels and on a global basis.
• Lead development of clear case for change, desired outcomes, accurate scope, clear roles and decision-making, and effective communication of the change.
• The role requires advanced influencing and negotiation skills to ensure clear articulation and alignment with stakeholders at most senior levels internally and externally

Communication Focus

• Requires proactive and clear communication and engagement with all key stakeholders connected with Sprite and Schweppes agenda
• Ability to communicate effectively within complex stakeholder network to ensure appropriate awareness and alignment on short- and long-term strategies and initiatives

JOB REQUIREMENTS & RELATED WORK EXPERIENCE:

The role requires advanced influencing and negotiation skills to ensure clear articulation and alignment with stakeholders at most senior levels internally and externally.  Leadership experience in leading large-scale global and regional R&D programs to deliver growth, continuity or productivity.

• 10+ years of beverage industry experience in a multi-national company
• At least 6+ years product development or research experience
• Experience leading global teams and working across multiple geographies
• Understanding of system economics, value chains, risk management and mitigation, and system communications
• Demonstrated ability to connect across network, regardless of reporting relationships
• Experience managing multiple projects across various time horizons
• Ability to travel globally up to 25%