Director, Franchise Strategy Independent Bottlers (Gurugram)

Role Type: Individual Contributor Reports into: Vice President, Integrated Ops - Independent Bottlers This leadership role is accountable for supporting and constructively challenging the Franchise organization to translate enterprise and OU commercial strategy into market-level, executable actions across Independent Bottlers. The role acts as a strategic integrator across Franchise, Integrated Operations (IB), Bottlers, and OU Leadership, ensuring end-to-end alignment, disciplined execution, and continuous learning to drive sustainable growth. What You’ll Do for Us: Strategic Integration & Execution + Partner closely with Integrated Operations (IB) teams to co-define, calibrate, and refine execution strategies based on market realities and bottler capabilities. + Work with Franchise leadership to lead system-wide end-to-end alignment with Independent Bottlers at the local and market level. + Act as a thought partner to Franchise Leads—alignment ownership remains with the Franchise Lead, while this role stewards rigor, clarity, and pace. Insights-Led Commercial Strategy + Pull together data, analytics, and market insights to identify granular growth opportunities across channels, customers, and geographies. + Translate insights into clear, actionable commercial levers that can be executed at the bottler and frontline levels. + Use a fact-based, hypothesis-driven approach to challenge assumptions and sharpen local commercial strategies. Strategic Project Leadership + Identify, frame, and conduct preliminary evaluation of strategic initiatives that support Franchise and system growth objectives. + Own and manage the Franchise strategic project portfolio, partnering with Franchise teams, IB, and OU functions to drive outcomes. + Ensure disciplined project governance—clear objectives, success metrics, timelines, and accountability. Performance Measurement & Learning + Objectively assess successes and failures of strategic initiatives. + Capture learnings and systematically feed insights back into future strategies and projects, strengthening institutional capability over time. + Build mechanisms to network best practices, importing and exporting scalable ideas across markets and bottlers. Enterprise Contribution + Partner with the OU Leadership Team (OULT) on business-critical, enterprise-level initiatives, bringing a system lens and execution rigor. Work Focus / Leadership Expectations + Mastery in developing compelling, actionable consumer and commercial insights at market level. + Ability to convert strategy into clear execution roadmaps with measurable commercial impact. + Strong capability to manage ambiguity, complexity, and multiple senior stakeholders across the KO System. + Demonstrated ability to influence without authority, particularly in bottler-facing environments. + Role-model “Leadership in the Network”—collaborative, inclusive, enterprise-first mindset. Qualifications & Requirements: + 8+ years of progressive experience in Operations, Commercial Strategy, Franchise, or related business roles. + Proven leadership track record, including leading teams and influencing senior leadership forums. + Experience working in complex, matrixed, and culturally diverse environments. + Strong analytical orientation combined with practical, execution-focused thinking. Communication & Stakeholder Management + Extensive engagement with senior leaders across the KO System, including high-stakes discussions and negotiations with bottlers. + Exceptional storytelling, presentation, and influencing skills—able to align diverse stakeholders around shared outcomes. + Demonstrated ability to tailor messaging to different audiences, balancing strategic depth with operational clarity. + Comfortable navigating sensitive, high-context situations with maturity and commercial acumen. What can help you be successful in this role? Growth Behavior: + Growth Mindset: Demonstrates Curiosity. Welcomes failure as a learning opportunity. + Smart Risk: Makes bold decisions/recommendations. + Externally Focused: Understands the upstream and downstream implications of his/her work. + Performance Driven & Accountable: Has high-performance standards. Outperforms her/his peers. + Fast/Agile: Removes barriers to move faster. Experiments and adapts. Thrives under pressure and at a fast pace. + Empowered: Brings solutions instead of problems. Challenges the status quo. Has the courage to take an unpopular stance. Leadership Behavior + Act Like an Owner: Deliver results, creating value for our brands, our System, our customers and key stakeholders. + Collaborate with the System, Customers and Key Stakeholders + Develops Self and Others: Develop self and support others' development to achieve their full potential. + Drive Innovation: Generate new or unique solutions and embrace new ideas that help sustain our business. What We Can Do For You + Growth opportunities and development: Leveraging our boundaryless network, we provide access to educational platforms and provide coaching, mentoring and feedback, as a part of our Leadership & Development process. + Diverse and inclusive culture: You’ll be embraced for who you are and empowered to use your voice to help others find theirs. We want to make our culture inevitable. + International Experience: Become part of international projects and work along multicultural teams, through our global network. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class.

Back to blog

Other Jobs To Apply

No other job posts for this day.

Common Interview Questions And Answers

1. HOW DO YOU PLAN YOUR DAY?

This is what this question poses: When do you focus and start working seriously? What are the hours you work optimally? Are you a night owl? A morning bird? Remote teams can be made up of people working on different shifts and around the world, so you won't necessarily be stuck in the 9-5 schedule if it's not for you...

2. HOW DO YOU USE THE DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION TOOLS IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS?

When you're working on a remote team, there's no way to chat in the hallway between meetings or catch up on the latest project during an office carpool. Therefore, virtual communication will be absolutely essential to get your work done...

3. WHAT IS "WORKING REMOTE" REALLY FOR YOU?

Many people want to work remotely because of the flexibility it allows. You can work anywhere and at any time of the day...

4. WHAT DO YOU NEED IN YOUR PHYSICAL WORKSPACE TO SUCCEED IN YOUR WORK?

With this question, companies are looking to see what equipment they may need to provide you with and to verify how aware you are of what remote working could mean for you physically and logistically...

5. HOW DO YOU PROCESS INFORMATION?

Several years ago, I was working in a team to plan a big event. My supervisor made us all work as a team before the big day. One of our activities has been to find out how each of us processes information...

6. HOW DO YOU MANAGE THE CALENDAR AND THE PROGRAM? WHICH APPLICATIONS / SYSTEM DO YOU USE?

Or you may receive even more specific questions, such as: What's on your calendar? Do you plan blocks of time to do certain types of work? Do you have an open calendar that everyone can see?...

7. HOW DO YOU ORGANIZE FILES, LINKS, AND TABS ON YOUR COMPUTER?

Just like your schedule, how you track files and other information is very important. After all, everything is digital!...

8. HOW TO PRIORITIZE WORK?

The day I watched Marie Forleo's film separating the important from the urgent, my life changed. Not all remote jobs start fast, but most of them are...

9. HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR A MEETING AND PREPARE A MEETING? WHAT DO YOU SEE HAPPENING DURING THE MEETING?

Just as communication is essential when working remotely, so is organization. Because you won't have those opportunities in the elevator or a casual conversation in the lunchroom, you should take advantage of the little time you have in a video or phone conference...

10. HOW DO YOU USE TECHNOLOGY ON A DAILY BASIS, IN YOUR WORK AND FOR YOUR PLEASURE?

This is a great question because it shows your comfort level with technology, which is very important for a remote worker because you will be working with technology over time...