Director, Oral Brands

Philip Morris International•Stamford, CT

18h•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Oral Brands leads the strategic direction and performance of a diverse portfolio spanning progressive flagship growth brands and established, mature categories. This role balances long-term equity building for advantaged brands with disciplined management, repositioning, or value optimization strategies for more traditional or declining segments. This role translates business ambition into distinctive, consumer-obsessed brand and portfolio strategies. It drives portfolio choices and innovation pipeline while orchestrating a seamless end-to-end consumer ecosystem; ensuring that brand positioning, activation, deployment, and experience are integrated across all touchpoints.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required; MBA/advanced degree preferred.
12+ years of progressive brand leadership experience in complex, multi-brand, or multi-market environments; experience in categories requiring strict regulatory oversight and categories driven by rapid brand iteration; balancing compliance-driven environments with entrepreneurial, market-led contexts.
Demonstrated experience defining brand positioning, portfolio architecture, and long-range growth strategies at scale.
Proven track record influencing brand-level commercial performance, with strong exposure to P&L drivers and investment allocation decisions.
Proven track record in launching and scaling complex consumer products with omni-channel deployment.
Track record leading and developing brand management teams responsible for integrated brand programs delivery.
Strong strategic and analytical capabilities, including consumer insights, financial acumen, and GTM planning.
Excellent stakeholder management skills across Commercial and Enabling functions and external partners.
Experience working in matrixed organizations where activation, innovation, commercial, finance and other teams operate as distinct but interdependent units.

Responsibilities

Define & Evolve Brand Strategy: Define and lead inhalable brands and portfolio strategies, including multi-year plans, annual brand plans, and scenario options.
Champion a culture of consumer obsession, ensuring brand positioning, value propositions, portfolio architecture, and innovation agendas are grounded in deep understanding of evolving consumer needs, behaviors, and tensions.
Own the development and continuous refinement of the brand positioning, value proposition, architecture, and long-term growth agenda.
Translate consumer insight, category dynamics, and competitive intelligence into a clear strategic direction that guides innovation, communication, and portfolio choices.
Ensure brand strategy is translated into a cohesive consumer ecosystem, where product, messaging, activation, and commercial deployment reinforce one another seamlessly.
Ensure brands remain distinctive, relevant, and resilient as market conditions evolve.
Own Brand Performance and P&L Partnership: in partnership with relevant teams & functions, drive sustainable top- and bottom-line performance.
Establish clear growth drivers, assess performance levers, and proactively course-correct based on data and market feedback.
Balance investment between equity building and short-term revenue delivery.
Establish KPI governance for brand health and commercial outcomes and drive corrective action planning.
Embed a continuous learning agenda, leveraging activation and deployment performance feedback to refine strategy and optimize consumer impact.
Translate Insights into Actionable Choices: Lead the integration of consumer, shopper, and market insights into practical decisions that shape portfolio and channel focus.
Ensure insights inform real trade-offs rather than retrospective explanations.
Lead competitive/category analysis, opportunity sizing, and the input for innovation pipeline and investment decisions.
Guide the translation of consumer insights into propositions, messaging, and activation toolboxes.
Ensure insights are activated holistically across the full consumer journey, protecting experience consistency from strategy through execution.
Influence Innovation agenda: Provide clear strategic briefs and guardrails to innovation team, ensuring pipeline concepts strengthen core equity and expand the brand intentionally.
Evaluate innovation proposals against brand ambition and portfolio logic.
Escalate and resolve misalignment when necessary to protect strategic coherence.
Align Activation with Brand Intent: in partnership with commercial leadership and teams, ensure campaigns, channel plans, and creative platforms reflect brand positioning and long-term equity goals.
Offer decisive input at key strategy and creative milestones while respecting executional ownership.
Partner closely with Consumer Engagement & Activation team to ensure full-funnel orchestration and measurable consumer impact.
Intervene when brand drift or short-termism threatens long-term equity.
Act as Enterprise Brand Integrator: serve as the connective tissue between Commercial, RGM, Innovation, and Activation to ensure unified brand delivery.
Resolve tension between short-term volume pressure and long-term equity health.
Partner with Commercial Transformation & Deployment to ensure scalable execution frameworks and best in class market deployment.
Align innovation timing, activation priorities, and commercial realities into one integrated brand agenda, driving continuous improvement through structured performance reviews.
Build alignment across peers through clarity, credibility, and structured decision making.
Lead and Orchestrate Brand Team: lead and develop a high-performing team of Brand Managers responsible for end-to-end brand programs delivery.
Ensure the team translates brand strategy into clear, integrated program roadmaps that align innovation launches, activation priorities, and commercial objectives into a cohesive brand agenda.
Drive rigor in briefing, planning, milestone management, and performance tracking while maintaining tight alignment with Activation, Innovation and Creative Integration teams.
Build a disciplined brand management capability that safeguards equity, ensures programs’ coherence across touchpoints, and delivers measurable commercial impact.
Develop talent that can operate confidently in a matrix environment, influencing cross-functional partners while maintaining clear accountability for brand outcomes.