Senior Brand Manager - Coffee

POSITION SNAPSHOT

Location: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Company: Nestlé Saudi Arabia LLC
Function: Marketing
Geographic Scope: Saudi Arabia, Oman & Bahrain
Reporting to: Cluster Marketing Director
Employment Type: Full-time

POSITION SUMMARY

Lead the Coffee business for the Cluster across Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain, covering the full Coffee portfolio across Pure Soluble, Mixes, Portioned Coffee and Ready-to-Drink (RTD), and across all Coffee brands. The Senior Brand Manager shapes and delivers the Cluster Coffee strategy, translating MENA brand strategies into locally relevant plans while identifying and leading local growth opportunities across portfolio, innovation, communication and consumer activation.

The role leads a team of two and works closely with regional and local cross-functional teams to accelerate consumer penetration, with a particular focus on youth recruitment, strengthen the local relevance of our brands and sustain market share growth. It owns the Coffee PFME budget, prioritizing investment behind the biggest growth opportunities while continuously tracking brand, consumer and commercial performance and taking corrective action where required.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Consumer, Shopper & Category Leadership

• Build a deep understanding of Coffee consumers, shoppers, consumption occasions, channels and competitive dynamics across Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain, ensuring strategies reflect the differences between the three markets.
• Champion consumer and shopper centricity across the Coffee business, translating insights into clear strategic choices and actionable growth opportunities.
• Identify opportunities to increase household penetration and recruit new consumers, particularly younger consumers, through the right portfolio, communication, innovation and activation choices.
• Identify emerging consumer needs, cultural trends and evolving Coffee occasions and translate them into locally relevant opportunities for the portfolio.

Business & Brand Planning

• Lead the annual Coffee business and brand plans for the Cluster, aligned with the MENA strategy and Integrated Commercial Planning process, translating regional brand strategies into clear local growth plans and identifying where locally created initiatives are required.
• Define clear strategic priorities by brand, segment, market, consumer, occasion and channel.
• Partner with Sales, Commercial Development, Finance, Demand & Supply Planning and other relevant functions to align brand plans, activity calendars and customer plans with commercial execution, delivering penetration, recruitment, market share and brand health objectives.
• Track business and brand performance, proactively identify opportunities, risks and corrective actions, and lead regular performance reviews with Cluster leadership and MENA Category teams with clear, insight-based recommendations.

Portfolio, Pricing & Promotional Strategy

• Lead the local implementation of the Coffee portfolio strategy across Pure Soluble, Mixes, Portioned Coffee and RTD, by market, brand, pack format and consumption occasion, ensuring each brand and segment has a clear role in driving growth.
• Identify portfolio opportunities and gaps that can accelerate penetration, recruitment and sustainable category growth.
• Contribute to pricing and pack-price architecture recommendations in line with regional guidance and local realities, and partner with cross-functional teams on promotional plans aligned with brand, category and customer strategies.
• Evaluate portfolio, pricing and promotional performance and recommend optimization actions that protect long-term brand equity while supporting sustainable business growth.

Brand Building, Communication & Consumer Engagement

Regional Campaign Localization & Amplification

• Translate regional brand strategies, big ideas and communication platforms into locally relevant engagement plans, localizing and amplifying regional campaigns while protecting brand consistency and maximizing relevance to local consumers.
• Build integrated plans across media, digital, social, influencer, eCommerce, shopper and experiential touchpoints, partnering with Media, eBusiness, A&P and Commercial Development to define the right touchpoint and media strategy.
• Ensure adherence to relevant brand properties and executional requirements, including tone of voice, visual identity, casting and product presentation.
• Track communication effectiveness through relevant brand, media, digital and consumer KPIs and translate results into clear learnings and optimization actions.

Local Campaign Creation

• Lead locally created campaigns and activations end to end, from consumer insight and briefing with clear objectives and KPIs, through development and execution, to post-campaign evaluation.
• Lead and challenge agency partners across creative, media, digital, social, influencer and activation to deliver high-quality strategic thinking, creativity and execution.
• Ensure all locally created work delivers strong consumer relevance while remaining consistent with the overall brand strategy and guidelines.
• Build locally relevant content, partnerships and cultural activations capable of strengthening brand relevance and recruitment, particularly amongst younger consumers.

Innovation & Renovation

• Identify local innovation and renovation opportunities based on consumer needs, Coffee trends, portfolio gaps and commercial opportunities.
• Provide strong Cluster input into category ideation and MENA innovation pipelines, ensuring local opportunities are represented and prioritized based on consumer relevance and commercial potential.
• Act as Marketing lead for relevant local I2L projects in line with I2L governance, leading Marketing's contribution to business cases, including consumer proposition, pricing, volume assumptions, investment requirements and launch strategy.
• Lead end-to-end local deployment of new products and renovations, including Cluster-specific packaging or SKUs where required, coordinating portfolio, packaging, communication, demand assumptions, customer activation and launch readiness across functions.
• Track post-launch performance and consumer response, identify learnings and initiate corrective action where required.

PFME & Performance Management

• Own the Coffee PFME budget for the Cluster, developing the annual recommendation by brand, market and initiative and focusing investment behind the highest-impact growth priorities.
• Maintain strong budget control, tracking spend against approved budgets and proactively recommending reallocations based on evolving opportunities and performance.
• Drive greater effectiveness and efficiency of marketing investment through clear objectives, KPIs, evaluation and post-activity learning.
• Partner closely with Finance, with a strong understanding of key business drivers including volume, pricing, mix, promotions and marketing investment, to ensure recommendations support sustainable and profitable growth.
• Track key Coffee indicators, including market share, household penetration, consumer recruitment, frequency, brand health and campaign and digital KPIs, and translate results into clear action plans for Cluster and regional leadership.

People & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Lead, coach and develop the Coffee Marketing team, creating clarity on priorities and outcomes, building capabilities through regular feedback, exposure and development, and fostering a high-performance, consumer-centric culture of ownership, collaboration and learning agility.
• Lead cross-functional teams across Marketing, Sales, Commercial Development, Finance, Demand & Supply Planning, eBusiness, Media, Communications and other relevant functions to deliver the Coffee agenda.
• Build strong relationships with MENA Category teams and ensure Cluster opportunities, requirements and market realities are clearly represented in regional decision-making.
• Influence senior stakeholders through clear strategic thinking, strong commercial understanding and fact-based recommendations.
• Ensure effective prioritization across brands, markets and initiatives, focusing the organization on the opportunities with the greatest potential impact.

Executional Excellence & Governance

• Ensure flawless execution of Coffee plans across markets, channels and consumer touchpoints with high project management standards, monitoring delivery against agreed plans and taking timely corrective action.
• Ensure all brand activities comply with Nestlé policies, brand guidelines, local regulations, responsible marketing standards and relevant approval processes.
• Proactively identify and manage executional, financial, operational and reputational risks associated with marketing initiatives.

WHAT WILL MAKE YOU SUCCESSFUL

• Strong and progressive marketing experience within FMCG or another consumer-led industry, with a proven track record of delivering brand and business growth.
• Previous experience leading and developing people is required.
• Proven experience in core brand building, consumer communication, portfolio management and business planning.
• Strong consumer and shopper orientation, with the ability to translate consumer insights into distinctive growth strategies and execution.
• Experience managing multiple brands, segments or a complex portfolio will be highly valued; beverage experience is preferred, although previous Coffee category experience is not required.
• Proven experience developing locally relevant consumer initiatives while operating within regional or global brand frameworks.
• Experience leading product launches, innovation or complex renovation projects with cross-functional teams.
• Good understanding of key brand and product P&L drivers and the ability to connect marketing choices to business outcomes, with demonstrated experience managing significant marketing budgets and prioritizing investment across competing opportunities.
• Strong understanding of media, digital marketing, social media, influencer marketing, content and eCommerce.
• Strong analytical capabilities combined with sound commercial judgment and the ability to translate data into clear actions.
• Excellent leadership, project management and stakeholder management capabilities, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders and lead cross-functional teams within a matrix organization.
• Strong communication, presentation and storytelling skills, with high learning agility, curiosity and bias for action.
• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business Administration or a related discipline; fluency in both Arabic and English is required.