Portfolio Strategy Manager - Western Cape or Guateng at The Heineken Company

Key Responsibilities

• Continuous engagement on and development of short and longer-tern portfolio strategy, informed by analytical rigor, deep consumer understanding including in-depth demand spaces, and collaboration with multiple stakeholders including Regional and Global Commerce teams. 
• Continue to craft the portfolio strategy and business story in an inspiring, clear way, aligned to Global and Regional strategic priorities, to gain buy-in and momentum on commitments to deliver to that ambition, and strongly embedded within cross functional action plans.
• Develop and update the focused portfolio strategy which prioritizes Heineken Beverages’ Where to Play choices (markets, categories, growth platforms) and How to Win capability step changes, using the Polaris segmentation framework as a key basis. Revisit as business, competitor and category needs and contexts change.
• Global alcohol market trends and key category & competitor dynamics
• Ensure that resource allocation choices are effective and efficient plus type and level of spend are geared towards growth ambitions.
• In collaboration with relevant cross functional departments, develop foresights on key external environmental drivers of Heineken Beverages’ strategy
• Regular reviews of Heineken Beverages’ where to play category and geographic choices, including inorganic strategic priorities.
• Periodic assessment of business performance vs. strategy, including key recommendations for change.

Strategy management

• Be the bridge between Global and the Region on shaping, aligning and reviewing the Portfolio/Category strategy during governance cycle (AP and SP)
• Support the CMI function to develop a comprehensive consumer and market knowledge for the different categories in the region.
• Develop and maintain deep understanding of consumer, category, brand and competitive context in order to nurture innovation front end and strategic review
• Intelligence briefings – category, competitor landscape & future scenarios
• Heineken Beverages portfolio strategy incl. 3-5 year execution roadmap to achieve key strategic goals
• Develop strategies to unlock future growth opportunities, using appropriate tools and frameworks eg. Sources of Growth framework
• Based on deep industry and market analytics, modelling and foresight, contribute cross-functionally to strategic business decision making through:
• Alcoholic Beverage market forecasts to SA to feed into 3-5 Year S&OP process
• Provide analytics on key regulatory challenges / opportunities for Heineken Beverages in priority markets. Scope includes economics/ industry analysis required to support key regulatory arguments.
• Responsible for ensuring category owners have sight of best practice to allow them leverage best practice and share it with other markets

Analytics and modelling:

• Support the strategy development process through analytical rigour for market and category-specific requests.
• Embed latest market views within relevant business processes eg. Quarterly MT S&OP to help align data and market growth projections with cross-functional teams.
• Regular engagement with category teams to input into their strategic plans, and obtain input into and alignment on latest market/ category updates

Strategic Planning & Alignment

• Support formulation of Integrated Commercial Plans, including guidance on resource allocation (CSP).
• Embed Portfolio and Brand governance framework, and regularly review prioritised Brands and Brand Custodianship aligned to strategic priorities.

Build effective relationships with external and internal stakeholders

• Close working engagements and collaboration with Regional and Global Commerce teams
• Provide a high standard of customer engagement with all internal and external customers and work partners.
• Effectively manage external insights, research, data and analytics partners to deliver relevant insights to the business that drives competitive advantage (future profit pools, scenario planning, etc).
• Creates network opportunities for own division to exchange information with others (internally and externally) to ensure best in class portfolio strategy inspiration and outcomes.

Education and Experience

• A relevant post-graduate qualification (BA, Economics or Business Science degree required).
• Minimum 12 years’ relevant experience, ideally across a range of categories/FMCG’s.
• Strong knowledge of market trends, emerging and disruptive business models, and thorough understanding of the FMCG value chain.
• Experience in the integration of trends, forecasting models and insights to identify business opportunities in order to develop strategies that capitalize on those opportunities, as well as to identify key issues relevant to the achievement of long-term strategic goals.
• Strong analytical skills. Able to interpret, synthesize and draw actionable recommendations from complex and different sources of insights and data
• Knowledgeable about Marketing frameworks and principles
• Knowledgeable of resource allocation and brand investment, plus good overall commercial acumen
• Personal leadership: be able to form a fact-based conviction, spot improvement opportunities in current processes and suggest & influence change, comfort with ambiguity, and strong conceptual and analytical problem-solving.
• Ability to manage and facilitate workshop group discussions
• Global exposure would be a significant advantage