Senior Director, Product & Operations Lead

Job Description Summary:

The Coca‑Cola Company is evolving into a more digital‑first, data‑driven enterprise to fuel sustainable growth, increase speed to market, and unlock new sources of value. Rapid advances in technology, data, and AI create a unique opportunity to accelerate the KO system’s next chapter of growth by reimagining our core competitive advantages. Building on a strong foundation of modernized infrastructure, global digital experiences, early data capabilities, and proven use cases, we are now shifting from early wins to scaled, end to end impact on growth, productivity, and efficiency.
This next phase moves us from an analog world to a fully digitized one, powered by a digital growth engine that embeds data, technology, and AI into our most critical business domains. Success will require more than technology implementation, it demands a strategic transformation of core capabilities, a domain based, product centric operating model, and a cultural shift toward experimentation, data and technology fluency, and seamless partnership between business and digital teams.
Success requires leaders who embrace collaboration, empower product teams, and are open to experimentation—without imposing rigid mandates or exerting unnecessary influence. This role involves leading and mentoring a team of Product Managers, fostering their growth as independent, empowered decision-makers with end-to-end ownership of their products.

The Product & Operations Lead Senior Director is responsible for leading and empowering a team of Product Managers to deliver measurable customer and business outcomes while ensuring alignment with the organization’s strategic objectives. This role plays a vital part in driving operational excellence, regulatory compliance (e.g., GDPR, EU AI Act), and product governance across complex, cross-functional digital initiatives.
The ideal candidate fosters a product-led culture by mentoring Product Managers, promoting autonomy, and embedding best practices in product discovery and agile delivery.
This leader builds collaborative frameworks that enhance alignment, streamline processes, prioritize customer value, and scale impactful operations across the enterprise. Success requires strong leadership, open-mindedness, and the ability to balance strategic guidance with supporting empowered product teams to achieve organizational transformation.
The role combines product leadership, operational management, and execution oversight to accelerate value delivery, improve organizational alignment, and enhance business outcomes. The Product & Ops Lead partners closely with global teams, operating units, bottlers, and cross-functional stakeholders to streamline processes, optimize delivery operations, improve visibility and governance, and enable scalable execution across the enterprise.
Success in this role requires strong strategic thinking, operational rigor, stakeholder leadership, and the ability to drive clarity and execution within highly matrixed and fast-moving environments.

Responsibilities include:

- Lead and empower a team of Product Managers to deliver measurable outcomes by fostering ownership, accountability, and innovation.

- Mentor Product Managers on best practices for product discovery, agile development, and customer-centric solutions.

- Partner with business, product, and digital teams to align priorities and execution plans with enterprise objectives while embedding GDPR-compliant data handling processes.

- Lead operational governance and execution management across strategic products, platforms, transformation initiatives, and cross-regional programs, ensuring alignment with GDPR and EU AI Act standards.

- Encourage a culture of evidence-based decisions and experimentation, emphasizing continuous learning over rigid solutions.

- Establish and manage operational rhythms, governance forums, delivery tracking, KPI reporting, and executive visibility processes.

- Coordinate cross-functional activities to ensure successful planning, prioritization, delivery, stabilization, and continuous improvement of products and capabilities.

- Identify operational risks, execution gaps, dependencies, and process inefficiencies and proactively drive mitigation strategies.

- Partner with business leaders and delivery teams to ensure alignment between strategic priorities and operational execution.

- Evaluate emerging tools, automation opportunities, AI-enabled capabilities, and operational best practices to improve execution effectiveness.

- Manage stakeholder communications and engagement across multiple business functions and leadership levels.

ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT

- Leads operational execution and governance activities across complex enterprise initiatives spanning multiple functions, operating units, and external partners.

- Drives impact by mentoring a team of Product Managers, aligning them with strategic objectives while enabling their professional growth.

- Shapes a product-led culture that empowers decision-making across Product Managers and cross-functional teams.

- Advocates product-centric frameworks that encourage effective collaboration and sustainable solutions.

- Drives short- and mid-term operational strategies that improve delivery effectiveness, business alignment, organizational transparency, and execution consistency.

- Operates within highly matrixed environments requiring collaboration across commercial, supply chain, finance, digital, and bottler ecosystems.

INNOVATION & COMPLEXITY

- Empowers Product Teams to identify and validate opportunities through discovery and continuous experimentation.

- Balances strategic oversight with delegation, ensuring teams are free to iterate and innovate within their domains.

- Builds environments where perspectives from customers, stakeholders, and Product Teams result in stronger product decisions.

- Leverages data, analytics, automation, and AI-enabled tools to improve operational effectiveness and decision-making.

- Balances strategic priorities with execution realities in fast-paced and evolving environments.

COMMUNICATION & INFLUENCE

- Influences senior business and digital leaders on operational priorities, execution decisions, governance models, and delivery approaches.

- Communicates complex operational and product concepts clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.

- Facilitates alignment across business teams, operating units, product organizations, and leadership stakeholders.

- Leads executive discussions related to delivery health, operational readiness, risks, dependencies, and transformation progress.

- Builds strong relationships across the Coca-Cola system to drive collaboration, accountability, and successful execution outcomes.

Experience & Qualifications

- 10–15+ years of experience in product operating model, digital transformation, strategy, business operations, or related leadership roles within complex global organizations.

- Proven experience mentoring Product Managers and fostering accountability for product success.

- Strong understanding of product-centric operating models with empowered teams and discovery workflows.

- Skilled in navigating GDPR and EU AI Act compliance requirements in product environments.

- Exceptional structured thinking, communication, executive storytelling, and problem-solving capabilities.

- Strong ability to leverage data, analytics, AI tools, and operational insights to drive decision-making and business outcomes.

- Exposure to commercial, supply chain, finance, people & culture, and enterprise operations environments preferred.

- Experience in consumer products, global enterprises, or highly matrixed operating environments preferred.
Skills:

- Product Strategy:  Expertise in aligning product goals with enterprise priorities and measurable business outcomes.

- Mentorship and Leadership:  Skilled at developing junior Product Managers and fostering cross-functional collaboration.

- Agile and Discovery Practices:  Ability to implement modern workflows and experimentation-based delivery methods.

- Regulatory Expertise:  Knowledge of GDPR and EU AI Act, ensuring ethical and compliant product development.

- Data-Driven Decision-Making:  Strong ability to leverage analytics and product insights for iterative improvements.

Skills:
Agile Methodology, Application Development, Budgeting, Business Processes, Business Value Creation, Change Management, Decision Making, Financial Forecasting, Leadership, Long Term Planning, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Office, Negotiation, Process Improvements, Risk Assessments, Risk Management, Software Development, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Strategic Alignment, Strategic IT, Structured Query Language (SQL), Vendor Management, Waterfall Model
Location(s):
Ireland
City/Cities:
Dublin
Travel Required:
00% - 25%
Relocation Provided:
No
Job Posting End Date:
November 15, 2026
Our Purpose and Growth Culture:

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. Visit Our Purpose and Vision  to learn more about these behaviors and how you can bring them to life in your next role at Coca-Cola.