Job Description Summary:
The Senior Director, Global Crafted Beverages – Commercial Operations will lead the global commercial strategy, system operating model, and market deployment agenda for Crafted Beverages across McDonald’s priority markets.
This leader will work closely with McDonald’s, Operating Units, bottling partners, internal cross-functional teams, and enterprise stakeholders to translate the global Crafted Beverage ambition into an actionable commercial roadmap that drives revenue, incidence, transactions, margin, and consumer recruitment.
In this role, the Senior Director will serve as the commercial architect and system orchestrator for Crafted Beverages globally. This leader will define how crafted beverage platforms — including lemonades, refreshers, energy, teas, frozen beverages, flavored CSD platforms, specialty coffee, syrups, and other emerging beverage spaces — are commercialized across markets, including pricing, value pools, bottler economics, customer strategy, equipment models, deployment routines, and performance management.
This role will work closely with the Director, Brand & Platform Innovation – International Markets, who will lead the innovation strategy, product development, pipeline, and product-related insights for McDonald’s International Markets. The Senior Director role is distinct and more commercially oriented: this leader will own the commercial strategy, system readiness, bottler / OU integration, scaling model, performance management, value creation framework, and operational discipline required to take Crafted Beverages from promising innovation territory to a scalable global growth platform.
The Director, Brand & Platform Innovation owns innovation development and pipeline stewardship through concept validation. The Senior Director, Commercial Strategy & Operations owns commercialization, market deployment, value creation, and scaling following innovation approval. Both leaders jointly govern the end-to-end crafted beverage stage-gate process.
This role will be equally focused on commercial strategy development and operational execution. The leader will partner across The McDonald’s Division, Global Customer & Commercial, Operating Units, bottlers, Finance, Supply Chain, R&D, Equipment, Marketing, Legal, Insights, and McDonald’s stakeholders to define where and how Crafted Beverages should scale globally, what operating model is required, and how to measure and protect system value.
The Senior Director will help establish Crafted Beverages as a long-term global growth engine, not a one-off innovation program. This role requires a strong enterprise leader who can operate across strategy and execution, simplify complexity, influence senior stakeholders, build structure in ambiguity, and create the commercial conditions for Crafted Beverages to scale with discipline, speed, and economic impact.
What You’ll Do
Shape the Global Commercial Strategy & Value Agenda
- Lead the global commercial strategy for Crafted Beverages, including market prioritization, growth platforms, commercial choices, and multi-year value creation roadmap.
- Define the “where to play / how to win” commercial framework for Crafted Beverages across priority geographies, beverage platforms, consumer occasions, customer needs, and system capabilities.
- Translate the Crafted Beverages vision into clear commercial choices across markets, beverage bases, price architecture, equipment models, program sequencing, route-to-market requirements, and deployment priorities.
- Build the global commercialization model for Crafted Beverages, including pricing guidance, revenue models, value pools, customer economics, bottler economics, value-sharing frameworks, and market deployment principles.
- Develop the global commercial value framework for Crafted Beverages, including revenue potential, margin expansion, incidence growth, transaction impact, cannibalization risk, system economics, and value-sharing considerations.
Design the System Operating Model & Enable Scalable Execution
- Design the global operating model required to commercialize Crafted Beverages across the Coca-Cola system and McDonald’s markets, including roles, responsibilities, governance, decision rights, escalation paths, and leadership routines.
- Create scalable commercial playbooks that Operating Units and markets can adopt and adapt, including market readiness criteria, customer selling materials, launch requirements, execution routines, performance dashboards, and post-launch learning frameworks.
- Build the global deployment framework for Crafted Beverages, including test-and-learn protocols, launch sequencing, market readiness checklists, commercialization steps, customer sell-in materials, bottler engagement toolkits, and post-launch reporting.
- Capture, codify, and scale learnings across markets to build repeatable global best practices.
Lead System Alignment Across OUs, Bottlers, and Markets
- Serve as a senior commercial partner to Operating Units and bottling partners to align Crafted Beverage opportunities with local market strategies, customer priorities, bottler economics, operational realities, and system capabilities.
- Build strong, trust-based relationships with bottler and OU commercial leaders to support investment decisions, market participation, commercial planning, and scalable execution.
- Support markets in developing local commercial plans for Crafted Beverages, including revenue models, price ladders, operating requirements, rollout plans, and customer engagement strategies.
- Lead cross-functional routines with TMD, OUs, bottlers, McDonald’s, and global teams to ensure alignment, speed, accountability, and issue resolution.
Drive Commercial Rigor, Business Cases & Performance Management
- Partner with Finance, RGM, Strategy & Insights, and bottler teams to build robust business cases for new platforms, ingredients, syrups, energy bases, equipment solutions, and market launches.
- Establish KPIs, dashboards, and performance routines to evaluate volume, revenue, margin, consumer adoption, purchase frequency, incidence, attachment, operational feasibility, restaurant execution, and market performance.
- Identify interventions when performance is off-track and lead cross-functional action planning to close gaps and accelerate growth.
Translate Innovation into Scalable Commercial Platforms
- Partner closely with the Director, Brand & Platform Innovation – International Markets and North America innovation leads to ensure the innovation pipeline is commercially scalable, operationally feasible, and grounded in market economics, system capability, and customer priorities.
- Evaluate innovation concepts not only for consumer appeal but also for scalability, profitability, operational feasibility, restaurant complexity, bottler economics, equipment requirements, speed of service, supply chain feasibility, and system value creation.
- Support development of global platform architecture across beverage bases, flavor systems, syrups, energy, lemonades, refreshers, coffee, tea, frozen, and other emerging crafted spaces.
Influence & Build Enterprise Capability
- Represent the Crafted Beverages commercial agenda in leadership forums, planning routines, customer meetings, bottler discussions, and system governance forums.
- Build compelling narratives and executive-ready recommendations that simplify complexity, clarify trade-offs, and drive senior-level decisions.
- Develop tools, frameworks, and routines that build commercial capability across markets and teams, including market sizing, customer selling, bottler alignment, pricing, value capture, and performance management.
Key Capabilities:
- Enterprise & Systems Thinking: Ability to connect the full system — customer, consumer, bottler, OU, finance, supply chain, R&D, equipment, restaurant operations, and global strategy — into one coherent commercial agenda.
- Commercial Strategy & Value Creation: Deep understanding of commercial levers, including pricing, margin, mix, incidence, transactions, attachment, customer economics, bottler economics, category growth, and value sharing.
- System Orchestration: Proven ability to work across complex global networks, align stakeholders with different priorities, and create practical operating models that enable execution at scale.
- Strategic Planning & Deployment: Ability to translate an enterprise growth ambition into a clear multi-year strategy, market roadmap, execution plan, governance model, and performance framework.
- Innovation Commercialization: Ability to evaluate innovation through a commercial lens — balancing consumer appeal, brand fit, feasibility, economics, operational complexity, customer readiness, and scalability.
- Communication with Influence: Strong executive communication skills with the ability to simplify complexity, build compelling narratives, and influence senior leaders across functions, geographies, bottlers, and customer teams.
- Customer & Bottler Partnership: Experience working with major customers, bottlers, franchise systems, or complex commercial partners to co-create strategies and deliver results.
- Performance Management: Strong analytical and financial acumen with the ability to define KPIs, interpret data, diagnose performance gaps, and drive action-oriented business routines.
- Leadership in Ambiguity: Comfortable operating in a fast-moving, ambiguous environment where the strategy is being built while the business is moving.
- Network Collaboration: Ability to collaborate effectively across global functions, Operating Units, geographies, bottling partners, customer teams, and communities of practice.
- Creative with Purpose: Balances new growth thinking with commercial rigor, operational discipline, and value creation for the Coca-Cola system, McDonald’s, consumers, and bottling partners.
Qualifications & Requirements:
- 12+ years of experience in commercial strategy, customer leadership, operations, revenue growth management, innovation commercialization, foodservice, franchise systems, or related CPG / beverage roles.
- Proven track record shaping and scaling enterprise-level commercial strategies across multiple markets, customers, categories, or systems.
- Strong experience working in a matrixed global organization with senior stakeholders across functions and geographies.
- Experience partnering with bottlers, franchise organizations, Operating Units, or customer commercial teams preferred.
- Deep understanding of commercial levers including pricing, mix, margin, incidence, transactions, value pools, channel strategy, customer economics, bottler economics, and execution models.
- Experience translating innovation or category growth strategies into executable commercial plans that deliver measurable business and financial impact.
- Strong financial and analytical acumen; ability to build business cases, performance models, investment recommendations, and market prioritization frameworks.
- Ability to influence senior leaders and align stakeholders across competing priorities, functions, geographies, and external partners.
- Experience in QSR, foodservice, beverage, customer commercial, or global customer roles strongly preferred.
- Experience working with McDonald’s, global QSR customers, or large franchise-based foodservice systems preferred.
- Experience in beverage platforms including coffee, tea, lemonade, refreshers, energy, frozen, syrups, flavor systems, or fountain equipment preferred.
- Europe-based commercial, bottler, or OU experience preferred.
- Strong executive communication skills, including written storytelling, presentation development, and senior-level facilitation.
- Bachelor’s Degree in related field or equivalent experience.
- Knowledge of the Coca-Cola system and McDonald’s business preferred.
Location:
This role is expected to be based in Europe, with travel to Atlanta, Chicago, and priority international markets as needed. Locations could include Dublin or London.
Travel:
25–50%, based on customer engagement, bottler alignment, Operating Unit partnership, and market deployment needs.
Skills:
Business Development, Business Planning, Collaborative Leadership, Communication, Consultative Sales Management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Group Problem Solving, Influencing, Long Term Planning, Operational Assessment, Sales Forecasting, Sales Management, Sales Process, Solutions Selling, Waterfall Model
Location(s):
Ireland
City/Cities:
Dublin
Travel Required:
26% - 50%
Relocation Provided:
No
Job Posting End Date:
August 13, 2026
Our 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.