About the Role / About the Job
The Technical Operations Director for the Middle East Franchise is a pivotal role responsible for driving operational excellence, providing technical leadership, and supporting executional priorities across designated markets. This position ensures alignment between bottler operations, the Franchise team, and system-wide goals, playing a critical role in the success of the Franchise ecosystem.
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Focus, Scope, & Impact
Strategic Focus & Geographical Impact
- The role is focused on the region, covering single or multiple countries within the company's Middle East Franchise. It oversees critical business indicators such as volume, revenue, and operating income, considering the complexity of supply chains, geographical diversity, and the maturity levels of the bottling partners.
- The primary focus markets for this role include KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), Kuwait, and Bahrain, where the incumbent will act as the TI&SC (Technical, Innovation & Supply Chain) lead for the Franchise operations, working closely with the Senior Technical Operations Director and key project executional support to the whole Franchise.
Territory-Level Support & Collaboration
- Provide technical leadership and executional support to franchise units and bottling partners across all TI&SC functional areas, ensuring alignment with regional strategies and operational goals.
- Serve as the technical franchise leader, setting ambitious yet achievable targets for each bottling plant while guiding their efficient execution to support growth and operational capacity building.
- Collaborate with Franchise Operations Managers to enable targeted capability and capacity building in supply chain, production infrastructure, process optimization, and cost efficiency within the assigned territories.
Operational & Supply Chain Optimization
- Lead bottling plant actions to optimize manufacturing costs and yields, ensuring profitability targets are met while maintaining quality standards.
- Facilitate the development and execution of productivity initiatives and supply chain contingency plans (BCPs) across the assigned territories in alignment with system goals.
- Coordinate demand and supply activities between bottling partners and the broader Supply Chain team, ensuring seamless alignment within the Franchise operations.
Commercialization & Execution
- Support the development and execution of commercialization/innovation plans by working collaboratively with key stakeholders, including Corporate, CPS (Commercial Products Supply), bottling partners, and other Franchise Operations (FO) functions.
Integrated Individual Contribution
- While this is an individual contributor role, it requires extensive collaboration across technical functions and operational teams to provide guidance and actionable solutions for strategic execution.
Experience
- Minimum 10 years of experience in one or more functional areas related to preferred food & beverage manufacturing operations.
- Overall good understanding and knowledge around Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Production, QSE (Quality, Safety & Environment), SRA (Scientific & Regulatory Affairs), Commercialization, Technical Franchise Leadership, or roles within the food and beverage industry.
- Proven track record of navigating complex manufacturing environments with an understanding of regional challenges and operational diversity.
- Strong knowledge of technical risk management, technical governance processes (frameworks, KPIs, etc.), and commercialization methodologies, supply chain process, and operations.
- Familiarity with QSE metrics, operational assessments, and project management tools to execute technical/commercial initiatives successfully.
- Demonstrated expertise in continuous improvement methodologies and lean practices within large-scale production and distribution ecosystems.
- Strong planning and organizational skills to ensure efficient execution of technical and commercial projects in dynamic environments.
- Robust risk-mapping capabilities and strategic problem-solving skills to anticipate operational issues and define effective solutions.
- Open to travel a minimum of 40%.
Skills
- Location: United Arab Emirates
- Travel Required: 00% - 25%
- Relocation Provided: No
- Job Posting End Date: October 23, 2026
Our Purpose and Growth Culture
We are taking deliberate action to nurture an inclusive culture that is grounded in our company purpose, to refresh the world and make a difference. We act with a growth mindset, take an expansive approach to what’s possible, and believe in continuous learning to improve our business and ourselves. We focus on four key behaviors – curious, empowered, inclusive, and agile – and value how we work as much as what we achieve. We believe that our culture is one of the reasons our company continues to thrive after 130+ years.
