Senior Director, Fanta, Global Development & Innovation

This role is responsible for building and directing a robust 3-5-year innovation pipeline of Global and regional Fanta Category in partnership with the GDI Category network, Innovation and Technology Strategy, Global Marketing Category Lead, OU Innovation Hubs, Strategy, Human Insights, Global Supply Chain, and Research-to-Experimentation.

This leader will be accountable for category product, package and equipment competitive benchmarking in the TOP 15/40 markets, ensuring Global and regional Fanta portfolio remain highly competitive. This category has high IP value through internal developed technologies.

Orchestrator of multiple TI&SC function subject matter experts and leaders, such as Flavor and Ingredient Research, Process Development, TCR, Packaging, SRA, QSE, SC, FM, CPS, GEP, etc., to identify fit-for-purpose concepts, which could be deployed through viable scalable solutions into the markets by the Innovation Center peers or Innovation Hub teams.

This role is a member of the LATAM Innovation Center Leadership team.

Focus Areas

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

• Develop innovation strategies (product, package, and equipment) to deliver 3-5-year pipeline for growth, productivity, and continuity plans for Fanta Category.
• Collaborate with Research to Experimentation team to design and develop scalable solutions for next generation of category products (New competitive advantage technologies, Product Superiority development, etc.)
• Collaborate with global and regional SRA teams to get ahead of novel ingredients approval through appropriate agencies (FDA, EFSA etc.)
• Ensure technical efforts on category 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.
• Monitor external environment to identify threats and opportunities for the category.
• Lead and direct a multi-functional technical team (4-5 people) focused on the Global and regional pipeline for Fanta category.

• Drive Category Big Bets to deliver against innovation metrics.

• Lead the design and front-end development of global Big Bets and partner with Innovation Center peers for regional solutions as appropriate, to ensure full value of initiatives is captured across the enterprise.
• Provide inspirational thought leadership and enable implementation of Category R&D providing 3-5-year pipelines for competitive advantage.
• Leverage routines to ensure early engagement and inclusion of other TI&SC functions.
• Ensure organizational alignment in the design and execution of Big Bets.
• 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.
• Partnering with the R&D peers, ensuring external connection with Bottlers and suppliers to understand needs and share plans, to fully leverage their capability and support internal stakeholders in trade associations to address industry challenges.

• Build and develop a highly engaged Category GDI network as well as leading a direct team (team size estimate 4-6 employees).
• Manage resources effectively, including leading the allocation and prioritization of activities, budget requirements, performance management and assessing development needs.

• 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 Category Leadership current on progress and potential red flags.
• Ensure effective and efficient information flow between Global Category Leaders and the R&D peers.

• As a key member of LATAM Innovation Center Leadership Team, develop and implement long-term and annual business plans and ensure successful achievement of them.
• Play a key role as a leadership member to ensure the Technical Community provides optimal thought leadership, strong business value and deliver on our commitments to the business from our functional responsibilities.
• Partner in the ownership of key technical talent progress and their development.
• Control and deploy resources appropriately, making sure the category budget is well managed and we deliver against the objectives.

• This role communicates internally with the GDI network, Global Category Marketing, OU teams, and Global TI&SC teams. External communication with Bottlers, suppliers and trade associations.
• Communication and engagement with multiple key stakeholders to gain agreement on the short- and long-term category strategies for TCCC.
• Proactive and clear communication and engagement with all key stakeholders connected with Category R&D agenda.
• Influence and negotiation skills to ensure clear articulation and alignment with stakeholders at senior levels internally and externally for the company category innovation agenda across the globe.

• BS/MS in Foos Science/Engineering - 15+ yrs
• Product Design Thinking certificate a plus
• Business and/or Finance certificate/experience a plus

• Experience in leading large-scale global and regional R&D programs to deliver growth, continuity, or productivity. Product Development Experience
• Strategic thinking and leadership in consumer-centric R&D, leveraging technical and competitive insights to deliver consumer value, IP strategy and robust business cases
• Portfolio management to help focus on areas of greatest opportunity
• Experience interacting with, influencing, and providing guidance to senior executives on substantive issues in a complex portfolio / matrixed business
• Expertise in organization design, planning, network design and manufacturing operations
• Orchestrator and integrator - ability to orchestrate and integrate across the organization lines
• Stakeholder management, with ability to drive strategic agreements with internal and external system partners around the world.
• Ability to manage multiple time horizons to establish robust multi-year plans.

• Program management skills, including experience of multidisciplinary/stakeholder projects, and ability to deliver project objectives with tight deadlines
• Strong insights generation and external capability
• Operating Unit Experience
• Financial modeling
• Global or International experience