Senior Director Real Estate - MENA - F&B(Relocation to the UAE) in City of London

This is a full-time onsite role based in the UAE and requires relocation to the UAE.

Role Overview: Set the Real Estate strategies to ensure the various brands achieve their expansion program in conjunction with the brand teams. Facilitate site acquisitions and leasing to assist the growth of brands. Negotiate and achieve development agreements with the franchisors in line with the company’s growth plans.

Scope: Restaurants portfolio across the 12 countries where we operate.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define the Real Estate strategy aligned to business strategy and objectives across the organization.
• Collaborate with key stakeholders in achievement of new stores opening targets.
• Set Real Estate budgets and maintain targets set for NSO/Op Ex and Cap Ex.
• Define KPIs for the Real Estate function.
• Lead, facilitate, communicate, and monitor the implementation of various Real Estate activities and projects.
• Approve and direct the strategic and tactical goals, policies, procedures, and SLAs for the Real Estate function.
• Manage and coordinate the NSO/Closure approval process.
• Create individual Site and Closure Approval Packages.
• Coordinate the information required for the creation of individual Site & Closure feasibility studies.
• Oversee the approval process for NSOs/Closures (Brand – IC – Corp) and effectively communicate status to all parties as required.
• Manage the communication program with franchisors for NSO, Closures.
• Create and maintain forecasts and tracking for NSO, Closures.
• Develop and maintain tracking and reporting tools to assess performance against budget for NSO, Closure, Rent.
• Monitor actuals/forecasts against DAs including assessment against brand specific incentives to maximise savings for the company.
• Create and maintain performance tracking tools to assess NSO performance against KPIs (Sales Hit Rate, EBITDA Hit Rate, IRR%).
• Lead coordinator for all brand related elements of the Real Estate Budgets including NSO, Closures, Rent, Capex, Closure Timings.
• Ensure SLAs are defined, reported, and monitored for all major Real Estate services.
• Responsible for ongoing estate management and rental reduction negotiations.
• Review and approve succession planning for Real Estate key positions to comply with succession planning process.
• Accountable for ensuring the first and second line of successors are prepared for identified critical and key roles/positions to ensure timely readiness of employees to assume those roles.
• Translate and cascade our purpose, vision, and strategy execution to the team to instil ownership mindset and motivation to act.
• Ensure company expectations regarding tools, resources, systems are rightfully communicated, cascaded for buy-in and adhered to by the team.
• Role model compliance with company processes, internal policies, code of conduct and core value behaviours.
• Accountable for team performance – coach and mentor the team for KPI realisation in line with company culture.
• Follow and coach the team to live by the company people practices throughout the company people cycle, starting with hiring, onboarding through training, development and when necessary, exit; coach the team for personal development, identify successors and be a mentor for cross-functional teams to support company growth.
• Plan, monitor and adhere to best allocation of resources within the budget allocation in line with Annual Operating Plan guidelines. Coach the team to adhere to the above.

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Finance, Engineering, or a related field.
• Master’s degree or MBA is preferred.
• Minimum 15 years of progressive experience in real estate, with a strong focus on tenant side roles within the F&B sector.
• Proven track record of leading real estate strategy, site acquisition, and portfolio expansion for multi-unit, high growth environments.
• Demonstrated experience leading multi-market teams across regions, with the ability to operate across diverse regulatory and commercial environments. Experience in MENA or GCC markets is a plus.
• Mandatory experience within the F&B sector, with a strong understanding of restaurant formats, site selection criteria, and commercial viability drivers.
• Deep understanding of the restaurant business, including market trends, customer behaviour, location strategy, and evolving retail and dining dynamics.

Skills:

• Strong leadership, coaching and mentoring skills.
• Highly developed negotiation, consensus building and communication skills.
• Strong strategic and business acumen.
• Ability to analyse problems and strategise for better solutions.