Director, Franchise Operations - South

The Coca-Cola Company

6d • $145,000 - $169,000

About The Position

The Director, Franchise Leadership – South Zone serves as the primary strategic business partner between The Coca-Cola Company and Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages (CCSWB) across the South Zone. The role strengthens system alignment, accelerates profitable growth, and drives marketplace excellence across the total Coca-Cola beverage portfolio. Reporting to the Senior Director II, Franchise Operations, the Director translates aligned South Zone and commercial priorities into bottler-specific operating plans and works with stakeholders to deliver volume, revenue, transactions, share, and profitable growth objectives. The role connects commercial strategy with frontline execution, maintains a regular in-market cadence across assigned geographies, and leads follow-through on agreed corrective actions. It also identifies common execution and capability gaps, shares successful practices across bottlers, and builds capabilities in partnership with South Zone functional teams. This is an experienced individual-contributor role that escalates material risks, resource needs, and trade-offs with clear recommendations.

The successful candidate brings a Growth Mindset, identifies opportunities to accelerate business performance, challenges conventional thinking, leverages insights, builds organizational capabilities, and inspires Company and bottler partners to pursue innovative solutions that create sustainable value for the Coca-Cola system. The position may be based in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, or other locations within the South Region. Atlanta is also listed under City/Cities. Travel required is 26%–50%, and relocation is provided.

The role serves as a strategic liaison to CCSWB South Zone leadership; drives performance across all categories, brands, and packages in the assigned geography; deploys aligned commercial strategies; and supports profitable volume, revenue, transaction, mix, and share growth. It builds executive relationships, contributes to annual and long-range Joint Business Plans, develops contingency plans, and turns category and commercial plans into outlet-level results. The Director assesses market potential and performance, participates in weekly and monthly performance routines, diagnoses gaps and tracks recovery actions, manages assigned discretionary budgets, builds regional capabilities, collaborates on bi-monthly planning, and brings market observations into bottler plans and regional performance routines.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Management, or a related field.
• At least 7 years of experience in a CPG organization across sales, key account, franchise management, or operations, including responsibility for business execution within an assigned market or geography.
• Demonstrated success translating annual strategies into territory operating plans, forecasting performance, managing customer or distributor relationships, and leading corrective actions that improve business results.
• Strong commercial and financial judgment, including experience with revenue and operating P&Ls, resource prioritization, selling, and negotiation in a complex franchise or entrepreneurial environment.
• Strong understanding of channel marketing, customer and outlet execution, syndicated research, and competitive analysis, with the ability to combine data and frontline insights to identify execution priorities.
• Skills listed: Annual Business Planning, Business Plan Implementation, Capacity Planning, Channels Strategy, Contract Management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Distribution Operations Management, Financial Performance Management, Negotiation, Strategic Leadership, and Teamwork.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree preferred.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary strategic liaison between The Coca-Cola Company and CCSWB South Zone leadership.
• Drive profitable performance across the full Coca-Cola portfolio in the assigned geography, including volume, revenue, transactions, mix, and share growth.
• Lead territory deployment of aligned commercial strategies and initiatives, establishing readiness, sequencing, ownership, and adoption with Commercial and functional teams.
• Coach, influence, and support the bottler organization to improve execution benchmarks, including Market Street Challenge, and ensure effective use of Market Street Challenge and Execute, Sell Hunt capabilities.
• Build executive-level relationships that foster trust, transparency, and mutual accountability.
• Provide strategic input, recommendations, and fact-based insights for annual and long-range Joint Business Plans.
• Develop and activate contingency plans to protect annual business plan delivery across revenue, volume, share, net outlets, SOVI, and pricing execution; monitor recovery milestones and results.
• Expand territory potential through Share of Visual Inventory (SOVI), Cold Drink Equipment (CDE), innovation execution, and conversion of category and commercial plans into outlet-level results.
• Align Zone leadership, operations, sales, and frontline teams on priorities across customers, channels, brands, and packages.
• Assess market potential and performance differences within the South Zone; recommend priorities, resource needs, and segmented interventions to the Senior Director II, and implement agreed choices.
• Participate in weekly and monthly performance routines, integrating revenue, volume, share, transactions, and execution indicators into diagnoses, actions, and follow-through.
• Identify performance-gap root causes with bottler regional operations teams, agree on corrective actions, track recovery, adjust territory plans, and escalate unresolved risks with recommendations.
• Manage assigned discretionary budgets within approved authority; balance territory needs, expected returns, and bottler capacity; recommend investment trade-offs and resource needs.
• Identify common execution and capability gaps, build capabilities with Region Commercial, Intelligence, RTM, and other functional teams, and share successful practices across bottlers.
• Partner with Franchise Commercial leaders in bi-monthly planning, integrating customer, channel, marketing, finance, and supply-chain inputs into a territory execution agenda with clear bottler commitments.
• Maintain a regular in-market cadence to validate outlet execution, learn from customers and frontline employees, identify barriers, and bring market feedback into bottler plans and regional performance routines.
• Foster a Growth Mindset by challenging assumptions, identifying growth opportunities, and driving continuous improvement across the Coca-Cola system.
• Model The Coca-Cola Company's leadership behaviors.

Benefits

• Learning resources and management programs to support continued skills and knowledge development.
• Medical, financial, and/or other benefits are offered depending on the position.
• Annual incentive reference value of 30% at target.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director