Director, Menu Strategy & Innovation

KFC•Plano, TX

13h•$174,240 - $183,920

About The Position

The Global Director, Menu Strategy & Innovation will define KFC’s global Menu Vision, portfolio priorities, and innovation roadmap to guide growth across consumer occasions and markets. The role translates strategy into clear KFC points of view, consumer-facing concepts, and innovation priorities, while connecting market learning and limited-time offers (LTOs) to the future core menu. It acts as a strategist and system connector, clarifying where to play, what success looks like, and how the system can learn and scale faster, without replacing market ownership or Culinary Development. The role owns and evolves the global menu strategy and roadmap; develops consumer-facing concepts and platforms; partners with business market units (BMUs) and local markets to apply the Menu Vision and share learning; and leads the strategic direction and governance of the global food innovation and LTO pipeline. It builds partnerships across functions and external organizations and leads the Menu Strategy & Innovation team.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required; preferably in Business, Marketing, Strategy, Innovation, or a related discipline.
10+ years of experience across strategy, innovation, category management, menu innovation, or adjacent consumer-led growth roles within QSR, foodservice, FMCG, or scaled consumer brands.
Ability to turn ambiguous consumer, market, and commercial inputs into clear business, portfolio, and innovation choices.
Experience translating consumer insight into compelling concepts, strategic platforms, and actionable innovation briefs.
Ability to manage an innovation portfolio across different time horizons, balancing near-term commercial opportunities with longer-term platform development.
Strong understanding of the innovation cycle from strategy and concept through validation, product development, market testing, and scale.
Ability to identify strategic learning from market tests and determine whether ideas should scale, adapt, or remain locally relevant.
Experience working across global, regional, and market organizations, balancing global consistency with local relevance.
Commercial acumen and understanding of how menu choices drive transactions, frequency, mix, margin, and brand relevance.
Strong communication and stakeholder-influence skills, including the ability to challenge constructively and simplify complex strategic questions into clear choices.
People leadership and collaboration skills, with demonstrated ability to mobilize cross-functional teams in a matrixed environment.
Curiosity, an action-oriented approach, and interest in consumers, food culture, category evolution, and emerging growth opportunities.
Ability to handle confidential information with discretion.
High proficiency in Microsoft Word, Teams, and PowerPoint.

Responsibilities

Own and continuously evolve KFC’s global Menu Vision and long-term menu roadmap, connecting brand strategy, Category Use Occasions, and business growth priorities.
Define KFC’s strategic point of view across priority menu layers, including Burgers, Flavor, and Modern Sharing.
Define portfolio and platform architecture, clarifying the roles of core, value, premium, LTO, and global menu platforms.
Identify future growth opportunities and translate them into clear choices and priorities for the global system.
Partner with the Kwench Platform Director to connect beverage strategy and growth plans to the broader Menu Vision and occasion strategy.
Lead development of consumer-facing menu concepts for Global-led propositions, translating strategic opportunities into distinctive, actionable propositions.
Define the consumer need, strategic role, food proposition, distinctive KFC expression, and intended business outcome for priority global menu platforms.
Create concept briefs for Culinary Development, Insights, Retail, and markets to bring priority opportunities to life.
Partner with Insights to validate concepts before significant development or market investment, using approaches suited to speed and learning.
Partner with Culinary Development to translate concepts into food and beverage prototypes while maintaining clear ownership between concept strategy and product or recipe development.
Act as a senior strategic partner to BMUs and markets as they translate the Menu Vision into local priorities, roadmaps, and business use cases.
Identify strong market innovation, understand its success, and assess its potential beyond the originating market.
Synthesize market best practices and consumer learning into global points of view, frameworks, and guidance.
Define efficient approaches to concept validation across markets and determine whether ideas should scale globally, adapt regionally, receive further validation, or remain local.
Establish feedback loops between Global, lead markets, and the wider FIT community so market learning informs future menu choices.
Own the strategic direction of the global food innovation and LTO pipeline, ensuring it connects to Menu Vision priorities and future growth platforms.
Ensure upstream food innovation decisions behind LTOs—including concept, consumer proposition, strategic role, and connection to future platforms—are defined before commercialization.
Use LTOs to generate learning for future core menu development and create a pathway from LTO to core menu.
Partner with Retail on offer architecture, pricing, calendar integration, promotional mechanics, and commercial performance; Food Innovation leads the food proposition and learning agenda.
Establish pipeline governance, prioritization, and decision-making across global initiatives and market opportunities.
Build strategic relationships with insight partners, agencies, and external innovators to strengthen access to consumer, category, and innovation thinking.
Create strategic briefs for partners and, with Culinary Development, suppliers, based on defined KFC opportunities and Menu Vision priorities.
Connect Menu Strategy with Culinary Development, Core Food Excellence, Kwench, Retail, Brand, Insights, Operations, and Supply Chain so strategic ideas can become viable solutions.
Lead and develop the Menu Strategy & Innovation team, with clear accountability across strategy, market engagement, concept development, and innovation pipeline management.
Influence senior global and market stakeholders through clear points of view, strategic storytelling, and fact-based recommendations.