Director, Competition and Strategic Insights, SAF

Role Purpose 

This role will accelerate Franchise growth by driving the Competitive & Integrated Insights agenda—delivering foresight and providing strategic advantage. Lead competitive intelligence, wargaming, and market share analytics with rigor, converting cross functional Competition, Consumer, and Customer data into clear root cause outcomes and decisive actions. Help shape strategic bets and execution choices by surfacing the most critical market threats and opportunities early, enabling faster pivots, sharper investments, and overall franchise performance. Operate as the Franchise’s strategic intelligence engine—relentlessly exposing what matters, why it’s happening, and what the system must do next 

Reports to:  

• SAF – Senior Director: Franchise Strategy  

​Key Responsibilities  

Lead Franchise Competitive Intelligence  

• Build and deliver quarterly Competitive Landscape Deep Dives that share category insights, competitor strategies, and emerging threats—translating them into prioritized business implications and clear actions. 

• Maintain and share a competitive intelligence mechanism/ system that signal shifts early and informs leadership decisions proactively. 

• Combine data from retail audit, consumer panels, customer insights, RTM and other sources into coherent, actionable insight narratives. 

• Diagnose and lead root causes of franchise market share shifts reporting, ensuring a single source of truth and recommend decisive corrective actions with clear owners and timelines. 

• Build and share an integrated view and storylines that show what is happening in the market, why it matters, and which actions must follow. 

• Elevat the quality and influence of insight storytelling to shift decisions and drive smarter choices.  

Facilitate Strategic War-gaming and Scenario Planning 

• Develop and run scenario planning and wargaming simulations that stress test the Franchise’s plans against competitor moves, macro shifts, and market disruptions. gaming simulations that stress test the Franchise’s plans against competitor moves, macro shifts, and market disruptions.  

• Develop competitor response strategies/ plans and recommended countermoves to strengthen strategic readiness and execution excellence. 

Franchise Insights Governance  

• Facilitate periodic insights sessions to align cross-functional leaders in key insights, market shifts and decision.  

Insight-Led Decision Making  

• Help share the annual business planning, quarterly/ monthly review with insight-driven recommendations 

• Together with Senior Manager: Business Opportunities identify sources of growth, opportunities and risks. 

Key Outcomes 

• Sharper choices & faster decisions through quarterly integrated insights with clear actions. 

• Competitive edge via proactive war-gaming scenarios and counter-move playbooks. 

• Growth accountability with measurable uplift in market share tied to insight-driven interventions. 

• Single source of truth through a robust insights operating rhythm trusted by key functions. 

• Market share growth across total and priority categories. 

• Action adoption rate and time-to-decision following insights readouts. 

• Promo and price ROI improvement. 

• Accuracy of competitive scenario forecasts. 

• Stakeholder NPS for insights usefulness. 

Qualifications and Experience Required 

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Economics, Marketing, Analytics, or related field (Master’s preferred). 

• 8–12+ years of progressive experience in Strategy, Insights, Competitive Intelligence, Commercial Analytics, Category/Shopper, or adjacent strategic roles.  

• Proven track record of leading insights programs end-to-end with measurable business impact.  

• Significant experience translating complex data ecosystems (consumer, customer, retail, digital, RTM) into clear strategic intelligence.  

• Demonstrated capability in owning market performance narratives, including market share, selling, sellout, and consumption analytics.in, sellout, and consumption analytics. 

Skills & Competencies 

• Advanced analytical capability across price/mix, elasticity, promo ROI, assortment, and share diagnostics. 

• Fluency in data tools: Excel, Power BI/Tableau; SQL/Python/R is a plus. 

• Understanding retail and consumer panels, brand trackers, shopper data, RTM datasets, and social listening. 

• War-gaming design, scenario planning, and competitive playbook creation. 

• Strong storytelling and executive communication skills. 

• Influence without authority and ability to drive cross-functional alignment. 

• Bias for action, systems thinking, intellectual curiosity, and high ownership. 

Key Deliverables 

• Monthly Market Share & Performance Pack with insights and actions. 

• Quarterly Competitive Deep Dive with implications and prioritized moves. 

• War-Gaming Workshops and “Counter-Move” Playbooks. 

• Integrated Insights Narratives for business reviews. 

• Dashboards in Power BI or Tableau covering key performance and market metrics.