Job Description

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Job title: Head of Planning & Strategy
Location: Dubai
About us
With over 200 brands sold in nearly 180 countries, we're the world's leading premium drinks company. Bring your passion and use your curiosity as you explore, collaborate, and innovate to build brands consumers love. Together with passionate people from all over the world, you'll test new ideas, learn and grow, and unlock a brighter, more exciting future.
Join us to create a career worth celebrating.
About the role:
MENA (Middle East and North Africa) is one of the most competitive, complex, volatile and fastest growing markets globally.
MENA consists of 17 countries (4 of these countries are currently sanctioned and 2 are dry) with half a billion steadily growing population with diverse religious and cultural backgrounds.
The Head of Strategy & Planning role will be pivotal to guiding, shaping, and articulating the strategy in line with the rest of the MENA leadership team.
Additionally, the Head of Strategy & Planning will ensure that the MENA team is guided by and informed of the latest trends, shopper insights and data, leading the vision for long term category growth strategy across the business. The Head of Strategy & Planning will orchestrate and deliver the annual activation calendar across all customer touchpoints.
The purpose of the role is to ensure that Diageo's growth agenda in MENA is data-guided, consumer-centric, and effective both in its upstream choices and its downstream creativity.
The role will also be responsible for taking this information collating and utilising it in to shaping, crafting, and building the rolling MENA strategy inclusive of its creation, build (with inputs from key internal and external stakeholders), communication, and presentation to both internal and external Diageo teams.
Role Responsibilities:

• Leads the vision for long term category growth strategy across the business.

• Represents MENA within the wider community of Diageo consumer experts; within the regional community of 'Europe'; and across the brand and category teams represented in the MENA portfolio. Also to ensure MENA's connected to Global Consumer Planning and the various global programs available (CCF, Category & Portfolio Strategy, Consumer Intelligence Portal, Oracle etc.).

• Orchestrates and delivers the annual activation calendar across key customer / partner touchpoints based on consumer data; while making sure it connects to MENA's Strategy.

• Responsible for unlocking shopper understanding & insight to create timebound activities/assets aligned to the category growth strategy, trade strategy and brand positioning.

• Analyses the Consumer Choice Framework occasions, motivations and shopper understanding and feeds into brand and commercial strategies.

• Ensures that the commercial organization leverages brand and category knowledge in all commercial strategy plans and activities.

• Owns and lead the review and development of the segmentation guidelines of MENA markets and look for new investment opportunities in order to deliver incremental growth.

• Owns the channel & customer activity and investment planning, tracking the market's adherence to the plan, recommending course corrective measures to ensure delivery of the plan.

• Creates and lead the performance driven culture within my market, driving collaborative approaches with cross functional areas and customers based on analytical rigor.

• Uses deep market and competitor knowledge to lead the long-term strategic decision-making process within the business.

• The role will be the lead coordinator for in market visits organizing and liaising between the various stakeholders to ensure the appropriate pre-planning delivering the perfect execution of each visit.

Experience / skills required:
Deep understanding of the tools, techniques and frameworks through which consumer insight is channelled in a multinational.
Understanding of the forms, sources, analysis and application of insight throughout the consumer journey and across a brand's ecosystem.
An intellectual and practical grasp of regulated marketing freedoms
Proven ability to work independently and without close management and supervision.
Proven ability to secure and work with data sources from unconventional sources in addition to globally established platforms to form a full picture of the region in a way that delivers a competitive advantage.
Strong relationship building and alignment skills.
Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with GMs, marketing directors, innovation teams, global brand teams, Supply, Finance to deliver transformational growth for brands
Able to reframe and turn possibilities into commercial reality.
Paints a broad vision which inspires people to follow and uses analytic skills and good judgement to determine which strategies will generate the greatest growth. Can turn exciting possibilities into commercial reality. Able to unlock transformational opportunities.
10-15 years consumer planning experience.

• Ideally some agency experience (creative, media, research, strategy).

• Experience of brand building either in TBA or in MENA.

• Good knowledge of the rudiments of marketing science and the ways in which technology is stretching them.

• Highly developed external lens on all aspects of culture and consumerism.

• Basic familiarity with the MENA region.

• Consultancy experience would be beneficial especially within growth or transformation projects.

• Experience with Corporate Strategy function(s) & strategic planning.

• Strong experience in analytics and ana ability to translate complex data into simplified messaging which supports action.

Flexible Working Statement:
Flexibility is key to our success. Talk to us about what flexibility means to you so that you're supported to manage your wellbeing and balance your priorities from day one.
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.
Worker Type : Regular
Primary Location: Dubai
Additional Locations :
Job Posting Start Date : 2025-11-10

Skills Required