Senior Director, Marketing, Nigeria

Role Title: Senior Director, Marketing – Nigeria 

Level: Senior Director  
 

Role Purpose  

The Africa Operating Unit (OU) is evolving its marketing model to unlock accelerated, sustainable business and brand growth across diverse and complex markets. Within this transformation, the Senior Director, Marketing Nigeria is the primary growth architect and market marketing leader for Nigeria.  

The role is accountable for driving topline growth, portfolio expansion, and brand value creation, converting consumer insight, innovation, and execution excellence into measurable commercial and competitive advantage. This leader shapes and executes robust market growth strategies, ensures disciplined investment choices, and delivers strong business outcomes by integrating marketing, innovation, and commercial priorities.  

Rather than focusing primarily on coordination or equity stewardship, the role owns end-to-end marketing-driven growth delivery—from strategy through execution and performance.  

Focus, Scope & Impact  

The Senior Director, Marketing Nigeria is the single-point owner for marketing-led growth performance across the Nigeria region, accountable for:  

• Driving sustainable business growth, brand strength, and portfolio profitability, balancing local market opportunities with scalable regional and OU platforms.  

• Owning the marketing contribution to revenue, share growth, and value creation, with clear accountability for outcomes and ROI.  

• Leading the Annual Business Plan (ABP) marketing agenda and shaping Long-Range Plans (LRPs) with commercially grounded market insights.  

• Defining and activating portfolio, brand, and innovation strategies that unlock growth across channels, occasions, and price tiers.  

• Translating OU strategies into clear market growth plays, ensuring speed, focus, and execution discipline.  

• Embedding consumer and shopper understanding directly into growth strategy, innovation prioritization, and commercial activation.  

• Leading a marketing organization of 12–14 professionals (8 direct reports) accountable for growth delivery across brands, categories, and markets.  

Key Responsibilities  

Growth & Business Leadership  

• Own and lead the full regional marketing agenda with explicit accountability for growth, value, and ROI.  

• Drive portfolio strategy and prioritization to unlock short- and long-term growth across core, premium, and innovation-led plays.  

• Partner with commercial, finance, and bottling teams to ensure marketing investment directly supports revenue, margin, and share objectives.  

• Shape demand generation strategies that translate into commercial impact across channels and customers.  

Strategy & Planning  

• Develop and deliver market-specific growth strategies grounded in consumer, shopper, and market dynamics.  

• Lead marketing inputs into ABP and LRP processes, ensuring strong linkage between strategy, investment, and expected returns.  

• Make disciplined resource allocation decisions to maximize growth per dollar invested.  

Brand Growth & Innovation  

• Own end-to-end brand and portfolio performance, with clear growth ambitions and KPIs.  

• Lead innovation strategy and execution (E2E)—from identification and validation through launch, scale, and performance tracking.  

• Ensure brands and innovations are managed as growth engines, not just equity assets.  

• Track performance rigorously and course-correct to maximize in-market impact.  

Insights, Analytics & Performance Management  

• Leverage consumer, shopper, and market insights to identify demand spaces and growth opportunities.  

• Embed data, analytics, and learning agility into decision-making across planning and execution.  

• Establish clear success metrics and ensure continuous performance management and optimization.  

Integrated Marketing Execution (in Service of Growth)  

• Activate IMX programs (media, content, digital, social, influencer, packaging, Studio X) with a sharp focus on growth outcomes.  

• Ensure creative and executional excellence drives penetration, frequency, mix, and brand growth.  

• Balance consistency with local relevance to maximize commercial effectiveness.  

Capability Building & Organization Leadership  

• Build a high-performing, growth-minded marketing organization with strong commercial acumen.  

• Develop talent that can connect consumer insight, creativity, and business results.  

• Embed modern marketing capabilities, agile ways of working, and accountability-driven culture.  

System Leadership & Stakeholder Influence  

• Act as a senior growth partner to bottlers, customers, and OU leadership, anchoring marketing as a value creator.  

• Influence cross-functional agendas to ensure marketing is integrated into broader business decision-making.  

• Represent the Nigeria growth agenda with confidence and credibility in senior forums.  

What Success Looks Like  

• Sustained topline and portfolio growth across Nigeria markets.  

• Brands that are stronger, growing faster, and contributing more value to the business.  

• Clear marketing-driven growth strategies translated into measurable commercial results.  

• Innovations delivering incremental revenue and category expansion.  

• A marketing organization known for business impact, speed, and commercial discipline.  

• Strong alignment and trust across system partners driven by results, not just process.  

Experience & Critical Requirements  

• 12+ years of senior marketing and leadership experience with demonstrated success in:   

• Driving business and brand growth  

• Portfolio and innovation-led growth  

• Insights, analytics, and performance management  

• Integrated marketing execution with commercial impact  

• Strong commercial and P&L understanding  

• Proven experience in frontline or market-based roles.  

• Track record of leading large, diverse, cross-market teams with accountability for results.  

• Strong capability in leveraging Digital, Data, and Analytics to drive growth.  

• Ability to influence and deliver within complex multi-partner systems.  

Leadership Behaviours  

• Growth Ownership: Takes accountability for results, not activity.  

• Enterprise Thinking: Makes decisions in service of long-term business value.  

• People Leadership: Builds strong, inclusive teams with high standards and clear ownership.  

• Impact Orientation: Focuses energy on what moves the business meaningfully.  

Communication & Collaboration  

• Strong strategic and analytical thinking with a clear commercial lens.  

• Highly influential with senior leaders and system partners.  

• Clear, compelling communicator who links marketing actions to business results.  

• Confident operating in complex, fast-changing environments.  

Other Considerations  

• Strong understanding of local consumer and market dynamics across Nigeria is highly desirable.  

• Willingness to travel across the region and broader OU as required.