Senior Director Real Estate - MENA - F&B(Relocation to the UAE) in 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. Facilitating site acquisitions and leasing to assist growth of brands. Negotiates and achieves 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:

• Defines the Real Estate strategy aligned to business strategy and objectives across the organization.
• Collaborates with key stakeholders in achievement of new stores opening targets.
• Sets Real Estate budgets and maintains targets set for NSO/ Op Ex and Cap Ex.
• Defines KPIs for Real Estate function.
• Leads, facilitates, communicates, and monitors the implementation of various Real Estate activities and projects.
• Approves and directs the strategic and tactical goals, policies, procedures, and SLAs for the Real Estate function.
• Manages and coordinates the NSO / Closure approval process.
• Creates individual Site and Closure Approval Packages.
• Coordinates the information required for the creation of individual Site & Closure feasibility studies.
• Oversees the approval process for NSOs / Closures (Brand – IC – Corp).
• Effectively communicates status to all parties as required.
• Manages the communication program with franchisors for NSO, Closures.
• Creates & maintains forecasts and tracking for NSO, Closures.
• Develops & maintains tracking & reporting tools to assess performance against budget for NSO, Closure, Rent.
• Monitors actuals / forecasts against DAs including assessment against brand specific incentives to maximise savings for the company.
• Creates & maintains 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, etc.
• Ensures SLAs are defined, reported, and monitored for all major Real Estate services.
• Responsible for ongoing estate management, and rental reduction negotiations.
• Reviews and approves 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.
• Translates and cascades our purpose, vision, and strategy execution to the team to instill ownership mindset and motivation to act.
• Ensures company expectations regarding tools, resources, systems are rightfully communicated, cascaded for the buy-in and adhered to by the team.
• Role models compliance with Company processes, internal policies, code of conduct and core value behaviours.
• Accountable for team performance – coaches, mentors the team for KPI’s realization in line with Company culture.
• Follows and coaches 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); Coaches the team for personal development, has identified successor/s and is a mentor for cross functional teams to support company growth.
• Plans, monitors and adheres best allocation of resources within the budget allocation in line with Annual Operating Plan guidelines. Coaches 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 analyze problems and strategize for better solutions.