National Sales Manager – Innovations

Job Title: National Sales Manager - Innovations [Which include total KBL innovations portfolio]
Level: Senior Management

Reports To: Head of Customer Marketing

Context/Scope:

Diageo is the world's leading premium drinks company with an outstanding collection of brands, such as Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Baileys, Captain Morgan, Tanqueray and Guinness. Our purpose - Celebrating life, every day, everywhere - plays a meaningful role in our company. It influences our people, diversity, brands, performance, and how we develop shared value.

Dimensions

Financial:
We are looking for a candidate who can:

• Take full strategic ownership of the innovation budget, leading the development and activation of breakthrough in-outlet and multi-channel programs that improve market impact.
• Drive bold, accelerated growth within the innovation category by identifying key battlegrounds and winning them through modern sales and marketing strategies.
• Lead progressive, market-shaping initiatives that expand share, increase consumer penetration, and deliver forward-thinking, customer-centric innovation solutions.
• Translate KBL's innovation ambitions into measurable business results, delivering at least +5% revenue contribution by building the next powerful income pipeline.
• Turn brand innovation concepts into commercially viable propositions, bringing ideas to life in a way that delivers on KBL's innovation vision.
• Own and manage the full P&L for innovation brands, ensuring strong margins, healthy net sales revenue, and long-term commercial sustainability.

About the role:

Internally within the organisation, this role is referred to as the Senior Innovations Commercialization Manager.

We are seeking a senior leader who combines strategic vision with strong execution capability. The ideal candidate is a highly organised, proactive operator who consistently delivers results in fast-paced, complex environments.

You will be a visionary innovator with a demonstrated history of launching creative, market-leading initiatives that drive commercial growth across categories and channels. Equally important, you bring exceptional stakeholder management skills, influencing effectively across a matrix organisation while balancing multiple high-priority projects.

As a people leader, you encourage and develop high-impact teams with a strong focus on capability building, talent growth, and sustained performance. Comfortable navigating ambiguity, you thrive in hands-on environments and turn complexity into clear, actionable outcomes that accelerate business impact.

Role Responsibilities:

• Lead commercial partnership for the innovation pipeline, aligning with Sales, RTM, and business priorities
• Mobilize senior sales and cross-functional leaders to secure focus, investment, and resources for high-impact innovation delivery
• Oversee end-to-end execution, integrating launches into the commercial calendar and strategic plans
• Partner with senior leadership to evolve the Sales function for innovation-led growth
• Shape and champion RTM models that unlock innovation scale and market reach
• Define enterprise-wide innovation KPIs and embed rigorous execution standards into sales performance
• Redesign sales incentives to reward innovation delivery and drive accountability
• Act as the key commercial bridge across innovation, marketing, and sales for strategic alignment
• Embed commercial insights into launch planning to ensure relevance, differentiation, and performance
• Set and track critical launch KPIs, ensuring robust customer propositions and sell-in tools
• Lead the innovation performance management framework integrated into global reporting
• Lead executive-level performance reviews and drive data-driven interventions
• Influence senior sales leadership to prioritize corrective actions for consistent delivery
• Champion continuous commercial monitoring, evaluation, and cross-market learning
• Provide strategic oversight at governance achievements to ensure go-to-market readiness and commercial viability

Key Collaborators:

This role works closely with Commercial and Marketing Directors, Sales team, Finance team, Marketing team, Procurement team, 3rd Party agencies.

Qualifications and Experience Required:

Essential Skills:

• Consistent track record delivering breakthrough innovation and commercial growth in Marketing and/or Sales
• Strong creative vision backed by deep customer and shopper insight
• Ability to design and scale innovative shopper and channel programs
• Skilled influencer who drives fast decision-making in complex environments
• Experience inspiring agencies and co-creating high-impact activations with key customers
• Encouraging people leader who fosters creativity, agility, and continuous innovation

Desirable

• Advanced business qualification (MBA or equivalent)
• Proven commercial management experience driving revenue through innovation
• Strong history of developing and leading high-performing cross-functional teams
• Experience leading transformational change and cultural evolution
• Strategic thinker who anticipates market trends for competitive advantage
• Strong communicator and stakeholder influencer aligning diverse partners around innovation vision

Flexible Working Statement:

Flexibility is key to success in our business and many of our staff work flexibly in many different ways, including part-time, compressed hours, flexible location. Please talk to us about what flexibility means to you and don't let anything stop you from applying.

Diversity statement:

Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and that they can belong, is a crucial part of this.

We embrace diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you'll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You'll be part of and help build and champion an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, mindsets, and more.

Our ambition is to create the best performing, most trusted and respected consumer products companies in the world. Join us and help transform our business as we take our brands to the next level and build new ones as part of shaping the next generation of celebrations for consumers around the world.

Feel inspired? Then this may be the opportunity for you.

If you require a reasonable adjustment, please ensure that you capture this information when you submit your application.

Client-provided location(s): Nairobi, Kenya

Job ID: Diageo-JR1120963

Employment Type: FULL_TIME

Posted: 2025-12-10T23:49:36