Brand Manager Malts

Job Title: Brand Manager Malts

Location: Amsterdam

Contract: 14 months fixed-term

About us

With over 200 brands sold in nearly 180 countries, we're the world's leading premium drinks company. Bring your passion and use your curiosity as you explore, collaborate, and innovate to build brands consumers love. Together with passionate people from all over the world, you'll test new ideas, learn and grow, and unlock a brighter, more exciting future.

Join us to create a career worth celebrating.

About the Function:

Our Marketing team are creators, helping to build and nurture some of the world's most loved brands. We craft amazing connections with people around the world to celebrate our brands' legacies and reimagine them for the world today, and into the future.

Everything we do is underpinned by a deep understanding of our consumers, behaviors, trends, and technologies. Using our genius and creativity, we unlock our brands' uniqueness, understand their purpose, and put them at the heart of celebrations everywhere. Together, we're celebrating diversity and challenging stereotypes through our advertising and marketing. Wherever your talents lie, from Design to Consumer Planning, you'll be celebrated and supported in our inclusive culture

About the role

As the Malts & Premium Whisky Brand Manager within the Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) Marketing Team, you will play a pivotal strategic role in building, growing, and protecting some of the most iconic brands in our portfolio. Operating as part of a newly centralized structure, you will work across a cluster of dynamic and diverse markets (e.g., Poland, Greece, Benelux, Nordics, Central & Eastern Europe), partnering closely with customer marketing teams and cross-functional partners to deliver impactful marketing strategies and integrated brand plans.

Your focus will be to adapt and deploy global brand strategies at a CEE cluster level, ensuring consistency, growth, and relevance across markets. This is a high-impact, strategic, non-operational role that requires strategic clarity, strong influencing skills, commercial acumen, and an ability to lead through influence & collaboration rather than direct control.

You will not be responsible for local execution but will partner with Customer Marketing Teams in each country to ensure brilliant delivery and feed market takeaways into future strategy.

Key responsibilities:

• End to End Strategic Brand Leadership on Single Malts and Premium+ Whisky. The key focus brand will be Singleton where we concentrate the investment. Commercially we will also play with Talisker, Cardhu, Mortlach and Bulleit.

• Lead markets in CEE will be: Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Israel, Bulgaria, Romania and Czech Republic.

• Lead development and execution of CEE brand strategies for your assigned brand(s), aligned with global brand frameworks and tailored to regional consumer, customer and shopper dynamics.

• Own the brand positioning, architecture and communication strategy for the region, ensuring consistency across all markets while responding to key local insights.

• Shape brand building across on-trade, off-trade, and digital channels, including culture-driving partnerships and omnichannel marketing experiences.

• Performance & Commercial Impact

• Partner with regional commercial and revenue growth teams to optimise the brand's commercial performance, including input into pricing, promo strategy, and margin delivery.

• Support the Head of Whisky CEE with brand portfolio planning, market prioritisation, and investment decisions to maximise value.

• Act as brand SME for regional teams

• Act as a centre of excellence for Customer Marketing teams across the cluster, enabling them to implement with precision and excellence.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Supply, Finance, HR, Digital, and Insights to bring brand plans to life.

• Translate local feedback and performance into strategic insights that shape future brand planning.

• Communication & Campaign Development

• Manage creative agency partners and media teams to develop and adapt assets that resonate across the CEE region.

• Guide and align all markets on media strategy, ensuring optimal balance between mental and physical availability.

• Drive performance across earned, owned, and paid channels, including digital and social platforms, and ensure the brand remains relevant in culture.

• Budgeting & Governance

• Manage assigned brand budgets, ensuring efficient allocation and clear linkage to critical metric delivery and strategic priorities.

• Monitor brand health and campaign effectiveness, using insights and data to drive continuous improvement.

• Thrive in ambiguity: In a restructured, centralised model that spans multiple markets, ambiguity is inevitable. The ability to operate effectively without having every detail whilst maintaining momentum is critical

• Ownership & accountability: Take full ownership of your scope, delivering both strategic outcomes and business results, even when execution sits with others.

• External Curiosity: Passionate about consumers, culture, and market trends, relentlessly scanning for opportunities.

• Cultural competency & agility: Collaborating across a diverse team and cultural landscapes to build brands that resonate in local markets.

• Growth mindset: shows flexibility, agility and ability to think with vision and without limitation to create solutions.

• Strategic Thinking: Able to navigate ambiguity, think long-term and adapt global strategies for regional relevance.

• Influence without Authority: Strong ability to build alignment and momentum across markets and functions without direct reporting lines.

• Digital Acumen: Deep understanding of digital ecosystems, performance media, and influencer-led content.

• Commercial Acumen: Understands P&L drivers, return on investment, and the levers that deliver both brand equity and financial growth.

• Executional Excellence: Not a project manager but ensures Customer Marketing and agencies complete to the highest standards.

• 7+ years of experience in brand management or consumer marketing in an international FMCG environment, preferably Spirits, Soft Drinks Company or other FMCG, having multi-market experience.

• Track record of leading regional or multi-market strategies with strong commercial outcomes.

• Leads the brand with strategic approach, being single point of contact for key markets within CEE cluster and towards Global Brand Team, need to have strong communication, influencing skills and partner management, and managing category and market heads

• Solves problems by taking a new perspective on existing solutions; exercises judgment based on the analysis of other sources of information.

• Proven experience in collaborating across matrixed teams and influencing senior partners.

• Deep knowledge of consumer behaviour, media planning, and campaign development.

• Strong communication skills in English; additional European languages are a plus.

• Passion for brand storytelling, innovation, and connecting with consumers in meaningful ways.

• Senior professionals with many years of Brand Manager experience in international

• Requires in-depth conceptual and practical knowledge in own discipline and basic knowledge of related disciplines, must have to have basic experience in commercial, customer marketing, brand building, marketing roles

• Has knowledge of standard processes and how own area integrates with others; is aware of the competition and the factors that differentiate the company in the market

• Leads the brand with strategic approach, being single point of contact for key markets within CEE cluster and towards Global Brand Team, need to have strong communication, influencing skills and partner management, and managing category and market heads

• Solves problems by taking a new perspective on existing solutions; exercises judgment based on the analysis of other sources of information

• impacts achievement of activities within own team and other related teams; works within broad guidelines and policies

• Explains complex, difficult and/or sensitive information; works to build consensus

• Brand Manager is responsible for creating and maintaining the brand imagine across all markets, growing market share and net revenue accross focus countries.

• Promotes the brand imagine through the creation and execution of brand strategies which are brought to life through advertising, packaging, communications, pricing and promotional activities in 360 way.

• Key brand in CEE region for this position will be: The Singleton, secondary focus brand is, in selected markets: Talisker. Commercial focus where some assistance is needed from marketing: Cardhu, Lagavulin, Mortlach, Caol Ila, etc.

• Lead markets in CEE will be: Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Israel, Bulgaria, and Czech Republic.

• Need to have at least 7 years of international experience, in brand manager role.