About this role
Location(s):
IndiaCity/Cities:
LucknowTravel Required:
51% - 75%Relocation Provided:
YesJob Posting End Date:
January 30, 2026Shift:
Job Description Summary:
Location - Lucknow
Role Overview
This is a senior system leadership role accountable for commercial planning, execution orchestration, and system integration for the Greater UP region - one of the most complex and critical operating units in the system.
The role is designed to act as the strategic nerve center for commercial excellence, bringing together sales planning, demand forecasting, S&OP governance, regional commercial calendars, and execution diagnostics into a single, disciplined operating rhythm. The Senior Director will operate as a key thought partner to regional leadership, bottlers, and central teams, ensuring alignment between strategy, demand signals, supply feasibility, and field execution.
The role requires exceptional system thinking, strong executive presence, and the ability to influence outcomes across a multi-bottler, multi-stakeholder environment without direct authority.
The role will work very closely with the OU Commercial teams of INSWA and bottling partners.
Key Responsibilities
1. Commercial Planning, Demand Forecasting & S&OP Leadership
Provide strategic leadership for regional sales planning and demand forecasting, ensuring robustness, predictability, and alignment with financial and supply objectives.
Own S&OP governance for the region, ensuring effective integration across Commercial, Supply Chain, Finance, and Bottlers.
Anticipate risks, manage trade-offs, and enable scenario-based decision-making to protect service levels and execution quality.
2. Regional Commercial Calendar Strategy & Governance
Set the strategic direction and governance model for the regional commercial calendar, ensuring disciplined prioritization and sequencing of initiatives.
Ensure full integration of commercial calendars with IQ systems and S&OP cycles, enabling clarity, ownership, and execution excellence.
Drive senior-level alignment across system stakeholders to minimize complexity and execution overload.
3. Channel Strategy & System Execution Stewardship
Provide strategic oversight to channel strategy and execution playbooks, ensuring they are insight-led, scalable, and aligned to long-term growth priorities.
Guide occasions development and execution strategy to sustain relevance across channels and consumer cohorts.
Act as the senior system interface with bottlers to ensure consistent, high-quality execution across pre-store and in-store levers.
4. Commercial Capability & Execution Excellence Architecture
Own the architecture for execution excellence across the region, including outlet expansion, cold drink expansion, BD&L effectiveness, segmented execution, and OOS management.
Set capability standards and expectations, leveraging the Bottler Capability Framework to guide investments, sales capability development, and execution maturity.
Ensure best practices are institutionalized and scaled across bottlers with varying levels of maturity.
5. Digital, Analytics & Performance Management
Responsible for expansion of Coke Buddy and driving business leveraging all features of coke buddy – Adaptation, expansion and deeper usage of the tool
Sponsor the use of digital tools, analytics, and outlet-level insights to improve planning accuracy and execution effectiveness.
Provide executive ownership of Integrated Execution (IE) diagnostics, ensuring insights translate into decisive actions at bottler and regional leadership levels.
Establish a strong metrics-driven performance culture, using commercial and customer KPIs to guide system decisions.
6. System Leadership & Bottler Complexity Management
Act as a trusted advisor to regional leadership and bottler GMs, influencing strategic choices and execution priorities.
Manage complexity arising from multiple bottlers, geographies, and operating models, tailoring governance and engagement accordingly.
Represent the region in central and enterprise forums, ensuring Greater UP priorities are clearly articulated and integrated.
Impact of the Role
This role is critical to strengthening system discipline, execution predictability, and commercial effectiveness in Greater UP. Success will be reflected in:
Stronger demand–supply alignment and S&OP maturity
Improved execution quality and field productivity
Higher strike rates, improved availability, and optimised product rotation
Improved NSR and system economics through better planning and prioritization
Qualifications & Experience
Experience
16+ years of experience across commercial planning, sales leadership, channel strategy, or system roles
Deep experience working within franchise/bottler-led operating models is strongly preferred
Leadership & Capability Requirements
Enterprise/System Thinking: Ability to operate across strategy, planning, and execution layers
Executive Influence: Proven ability to lead through influence in complex, matrixed systems
Strategic & Analytical Depth: Strong comfort with ambiguity, trade-offs, and data-driven decision-making
Change Leadership: Track record of building governance, discipline, and capability at scale
Functional Expertise
Sales Planning & Demand Forecasting
S&OP Governance and System Integration
Commercial Calendar Design & Execution Governance
Channel & Shopper Strategy Oversight
Bottler Management and System Economics
Advanced Analytics, IE Diagnostics, and Performance Metrics
Skills:
Business Integrations, Business Planning, Channel Management, Communication, Execution Excellence, Market Dynamics, Negotiation, Revenue Growth Management, Value Chain EconomicsOur 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. Visit Our Purpose and Vision to learn more about these behaviors and how you can bring them to life in your next role at Coca-Cola.
Other facts
About The Coca-Cola Company
From our roots at the counter of a local Atlanta pharmacy, to our current portfolio of more than 200 beverages, The Coca-Cola Company is one of the most globally-recognized brands in the world. Today, our lineup features beloved beverage brands, including
Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, smartwater, Dasani, Topo Chico, BODYARMOR, Powerade, Costa, Georgia, Goldpeak, Minute Maid, Simply, fairlife and more.
The Coca-Cola Company is committed to bringing about real change – to our industry, to our local economies, and to the world around us. Through constant evolution, we continue to reimagine the way we refresh the world and make a difference.
We're innovating our portfolio with products that give people more varieties that meet our consumers where they are.
We're working with global partners to transform our business, and grow it in more sustainable ways.
And we're providing jobs and opportunities to the local economies where our people live and work, employing 700,000 people throughout our global system alongside bottling partners.
If you're a changemaker looking to make a change, come join us in our mission to refresh the world and make a difference.
Learn more at: www.coca-colacompany.com/careers
What you'll do
- The Senior Director will lead commercial planning, execution orchestration, and system integration for the Greater UP region. This includes overseeing sales planning, demand forecasting, and ensuring alignment between strategy and execution.
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