Senior Manager, Productivity, GDI

The Coca-Cola Company•Atlanta, GA

21h•$131,000 - $153,000

About The Position

Our North America Innovation Center sits at the heart of The Coca-Cola Company’s next chapter of growth. We are committed to transforming and evolving our organization and ambitions — bringing our people closer to the consumer, continuously raising the bar, and embracing digitalization to enable sustainable growth. We are looking for a highly driven individual contributor who thrives on ownership and impact, and who fuels the innovation pipeline with bold ideas that translate into real-world results. This role is not about maintaining the status quo; it is about challenging assumptions, unlocking opportunity, and personally driving valuable breakthrough innovation. You will apply deep product development expertise to lead productivity initiatives, contributing to keep our business continuity, bringing efficiencies to the system — accelerating growth and helping shape the future of the organization. Job Purpose Summary As a Senior Manager, Productivity, you will lead the execution of the most impactful product development initiatives to accelerate bottom- line growth, keeping our business continuity and bringing productivity to life through advanced formulation, testing, and commercialization. As the most senior individual contributor on the team, you will support the team lead by coaching and guiding scientists, sharing deep technical expertise, and helping shape team strategy and ways of working. You will partner closely with cross-functional stakeholders to drive local and regional projects, applying strong technical judgment, market insights, and digital tools to ensure products meet consumer expectations, quality standards, regulatory requirements, and manufacturing realities. This is a highly hands-on role for a trusted technical leader who influences through expertise, mentorship, and collaboration while delivering high-impact beverage innovations

Requirements

Bachelor’s/Master’s in Food Science, Chemistry, Nutrition, Chemical Engineering, or similar.
8-10 years in product development for beverages/food
Strong technical understanding of ingredient functionality within beverage systems.
Experience managing multiple projects from ideation to launch in fast-paced environments.
Familiarity with sensory evaluation, consumer testing, and data interpretation for decision-making.
Ability to Think end-to-end across initiatives and influences priorities aligned with strategy.
Understand and apply the technical domain trends/ new technology at work.
Encourage creativity within the team and removes barriers to idea generation.
Leverage internal and external resources smartly.
Act as a subject-matter expert and sets technical direction or standards.
Solve complex, ambiguous problems and anticipates downstream impacts.
Coach and supports others within and outside of the team, sharing expertise and constructive feedback.
Cross functional influence
Make timely decisions with incomplete information while managing risk.
Fluent in English; regional languages a plus.
Regional travel up to 10–15%.

Responsibilities

Product Design - Work as part of functional team to align on objective (productivity & business continuity) and success criteria’s with OU Innovation Hub, OU TISC and Global category Leads
Create Prototypes & Formulations – Coach scientists and develop lab-scale recipes driven by consumer insights and technical/supply chain requirements, following GMP and company protocols. Incorporate local insights, new ingredients, and regulatory needs into final product design.
Test, Learn, Improve – Conduct sensory, analytical, and shelf-life testing together with the Micro and stability teams; use data and basic statistics to guide optimization.
Scale Up for Market – Lead support from GDI for pilot and commercial production trials, ensuring processes and packaging compatibility.
Collaborate Broadly - Partner with Marketing, SRA, Supply Chain, Packaging, and Quality for seamless delivery; connect with global technical experts to import best practices.
Maintain Excellence – Over the full process, keep lab equipment in top condition; follow safety, compliance, and documentation standards.

Benefits

Purpose Driven: Purpose driven approach that empowers our people to protect the environment and communities we serve while delivering safe & quality products.
Global Connections: Allows you to develop, enhance and maintain global connections that allow us to move faster and learn from others.
Community of Belonging: We’re an organization that believes our ability to continually grow and build the right atmosphere where people feel safe and empowered, lets you bring your best self to work.
A full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the position, is offered.
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.
We believe a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace makes us a stronger and more innovative company.
This includes supporting the financial and personal well-being of our employees.
We empower each and every one of our employees across the globe to prioritize their career development by building capabilities, developing new skills, and leaning into new experiences.