In the company ecosystem, Grocery & Retail (Quick Commerce) is one of the most strategic pillars. A Director of Strategy & Performance for this vertical is the "engine room" of the regional business, focusing on the hyper-growth of the company mart (darkstores) and the Marketplace (partnered retailers like Carrefour, Lulu, etc.).
Ready to apply for roles like this?
Unlock the company name and direct application link. Subscribers get instant access to fresh jobs across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, many with visa support.
Unlock employer & apply directly
Responsibilities
-
Strategic Leadership & Planning
- Vision Execution: Translate Group-level goals into localized Grocery and Retail strategies for various markets.
- Annual Budgeting & OKRs: Lead the annual and quarterly planning cycles, setting aggressive yet realistic targets for revenue, cost, and market share.
- Market Expansion: Evaluate new business opportunities, market entries, or service line extensions (e.g., the company mart).
-
Performance Management
- Business Monitoring: Own the daily/weekly/monthly business review. You are the primary person responsible for identifying why a market is over or under-performing.
- P&L Optimization: Conduct deep-dive analyses on cost structures, unit economics, and marketing ROI to drive the path to profitability.
- Data Governance: Partner with Data/BI teams to build automated dashboards (Tableau/Looker) that provide "one version of the truth" for leadership.
-
Cross-Functional Orchestration
- C-Suite Advisory: Act as a trusted partner to Regional GMs and the CRO, providing executive-ready narratives and decision-support decks.
- Best Practice Scaling: Identify "what works" in one market and build the framework to scale it across other MENA markets.
- Regional Leadership & Governance: You don't manage the local teams, but you set the "Playbook" they must follow across multiple topics/processes.
-
People Leadership
- Team Development: Lead and mentor a team of Strategy Managers and Analysts, fostering a culture of "Ownership" and "Pace."
- Stakeholder Influence: Manage complex relationships across Central (Berlin) and Local (Regional) teams, often influencing without direct authority.
Qualifications
- Experience: 6+ years of professional experience. A background in Top-tier Strategy Consulting (McKinsey, BCG, Bain) is highly preferred, ideally combined with experience in Modern Retail (Amazon, Carrefour, Ocado) or another Global Q-Commerce player.
- Analytical Prowess: Advanced mastery of data visualization (Tableau) and mastery of financial modeling and business analytics. Excel/Google Sheets is mandatory.
- Regional Nuance: Deep understanding of the MENA consumer landscape.
- Leadership: Proven ability to lead a team of high-performing managers and influence Country GMs who have their own P&L pressures.
- Communication: Exceptional storytelling skills—the ability to take 100 data points and turn them into 3 clear strategic takeaways for a C-level audience.
- Agility: You must be comfortable with the "Move Fast" culture of the company. Decisions that take weeks elsewhere happen in days here.
- Mindset: "Hands-on" leadership.
