Job Description

Roles & Responsibilities

The Innovation & Commercialization function is part of the broader Marketing Category organization (including Marketing, Insights, Design, Consumer Engagement), and plays a key role in PepsiCo s accelerated growth agenda across the business.

The purpose of the Innovation & Commercialization function is to Power Positive Growth by delivering smart end-to-end (E2E) solutions that are positive for the portfolio, people & planet, one smile at a time.

The function provides strategic & operational governance of PepsiCo s Innovation & Positive Choices agenda, leads platform, program & project management from strategy to action, identifies & intentionally scales winning innovation across the enterprise and provides world class, digitalized, processes, systems & tools to underpin the agenda.

The primary purpose of this role is to enable accelerated, profitable, sustainable growth by driving the rapid prioritization, development & flawless execution, at scale, of a world class pipeline of human-centric innovation that is positive for the portfolio, people & planet

The role serves as a central driver of Saudi s evolution into a strategic anchor market, owning portfolio transformation, innovation pipeline, and commercialization excellence.

It shapes both short-term growth delivery and long-term future-ready portfolio direction for KSA, while influencing broader Middle East and global innovation agendas.

Responsibilities

3 Lens Innovation Leadership

• Provide unique, 3-Lens leadership expertise across the Desirability, Feasibility & Viability lenses at Hopper, pipeline & project level.
• Identify the key tensions between a winning consumer proposition, the ability to make/move/sell and the financial viability for PEP from the outset to deliver a winning, sustainable proposition.
• This enables key trade-offs to be made early and ensures the Hopper is human centric, strategically sound & affordable and that project teams are set up for success from the start.
• Ensuring that pep+ is front & center of the 3-Lenses is also a key responsibility of the role.

Intentionally Scale Human Centric Solutions

• Identify winning innovations from across the enterprise that can be Lift & Scaled across the MU by leveraging PepsiCo s digitalized, always-on innovation Hopper, and connectivity with sector functional peers.
• Support the Desirability assessment of the innovations (category readiness, strategic brand fit, concept appeal) in partnership with Sector/BU marketing teams, drive the Feasibility & Viability assessments, and develop an E2E roll-out master plan and associated capability investments.
• Define the appropriate governance to ensure delivery to roadmap.

Drive Bold Choices & Winning Execution

• Define and shape the role of innovation within the KSA growth algorithm, directly influencing business performance, incrementality, and portfolio mix.
• Embed & drive PepsiCo s key innovation KPIs, including: incremental, profitable growth (incr NR & GM) ; Hopper/Pipeline sufficiency (Inc NR vs algo need) ; stickability (HH penetration, ROS, NR growth); Simplify to Grow (incr NR per project).
• Creatively orchestrate the development of the MU Innovation Hopper, in partnership with Marketing, R&D & Supply Chain, with particular focus on ensuring innovation sufficiency, scalability, identifying critical platform capability investments and driving trade-offs / phasing.
• Enable best-in-class calendar development for KSA across the primary focus areas (e.g. innovation, Positive Choices, Planet Positive, PPA), ensuring the pipeline delivers against SDD priorities and AOP growth & profitability targets, is affordable & executable.
• Ensure commercialization readiness of Calendars for AOP & Customer Sell-In, and intentional pre & post-launch governance of calendar critical projects
• Drive winning execution of the calendar.
• Assess calendar readiness, highlighting risks, mitigations and trade offs and engaging with Sales to ensure the appropriate focus against each project.
• Optimize execution plans to minimize the overall cost of change and complexity and driving focus on stickability of prior year launches
• Lead end-to-end delivery of transformation initiatives, ensuring scope, milestones, risks, and cross-functional alignment are proactively managed to deliver on business commitments.
• Bring together all elements across Marketing, Sales, R&D, Supply Chain & Finance to deliver projects to agreed scope, on budget, on time.
• Rapidly identify & course correct risks & opportunities both pre & post launch to maximize scale & success of the project.
• Own BU Innovation governance and the Stage Gate decision making forum to ensure that all projects are cross-functionally aligned and appropriate trade offs are made between initiatives, brands and categories.
• Lead regular performance reviews and ensure learnings are built into future projects and calendars.

Support Portfolio Transformation and Future-Ready Growth

• Drive portfolio transformation agenda in partnership with key functions, building a robust innovation hopper and pipeline aligned with both Saudi growth priorities and global strategic direction.
• Lead the execution of high-impact initiatives ensuring a strong balance between short-term delivery and long-term future-proofing of the portfolio.
• Champion flagship platforms such as Oven Baked, Functional Snacking via Sun, and Sweevory, translating strategy into scalable, commercially viable propositions.

Drive Information Excellence on MyInnovations

• Own and lead the MyInnovations portal governance, ensuring a robust and continuously updated innovation hopper and pipeline with full alignment to global priorities.
• Maintain high standards of data accuracy, completeness, and timeliness across all initiatives.
• Establish strong discipline around milestone tracking, ensuring all project timelines are proactively managed and transparently reflected in the system.
• Act as the single point of accountability for pipeline visibility, enabling leadership to make informed, data-driven decisions.
• Embed end-to-end excellence across the innovation lifecycle, from ideation through commercialization, ensuring seamless cross-functional coordination and delivery rigor.
• This role will elevate MyInnovations from a tracking tool to a strategic enabler of portfolio transformation and execution excellence.

Desired Candidate Profile

Minimum 9+ years business experience, preferably in consumer, commercial or supply chain roles

Minimum Bachelor's Degree education, ideally in business studies, engineering or finance

High level of business acumen must be commercially & organizationally savvy and financially astute.

Understanding of the E2E innovation process, from idea to launch, including knowledge of P&L fundamentals, Supply Chain & GTM an advantage

Results-oriented with a high degree of personal initiative and leadership can operate well within a low resource, fast-paced cross-functional environment

Exceptional Self-driven leader with strong communication and collaboration skills, ability to influence at all levels and comfortable managing conflict

Proven commercial project leadership/management skills, ability to manage complex functional interdependencies in project timelines

Strong process thinker committed to driving process efficiency, strength in data analysis and interpretation in order to develop business recommendations and strong analytical thinking to comprehend potential challenges, and propose feasible solutions

Critical leadership competencies include:

• Inspirational Leadership
• Drive for Results
• Collaboration