At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead a global team to decode shopper behaviour and drive commercial success.
- Company: Join Coca-Cola, a leader in the beverage industry with a focus on innovation.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, annual incentives, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Work in a dynamic environment with a commitment to diversity and inclusion.
- Why this job: Make a real impact by transforming insights into actionable strategies.
- Qualifications: 10-15 years in shopper insights or commercial strategy roles required.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 80000 £ per year.
Reporting into the Global Shopper Science Lead, the Senior Director, Purchasing Science is a new global role created to build and lead a science‑based capability that decodes purchasing behavior, turns insights into commercial advantage, and embeds science‑based decision‑making into how we create value with our retail and channel partners. This role integrates advanced analytics, experimentation, behavioral science with omnichannel shop floor behavior and outlet understanding to enable best‑in‑class commercial execution and drive profitable growth across the Coca‑Cola system by learning, optimizing, and influencing purchasing decisions. This is an individual contributor role that focuses on explaining how shoppers notice, evaluate, and choose in real purchase contexts, grounding activation in behavioral and decision sciences rather than just commercial metrics.
SCOPE & IMPACT
- Enterprise scope: Leads the translation, integration and scaling of shopper, channel and purchasing insights into shopper decision frameworks, combining behavioral insights and analytics to understand and influence how shoppers notice, choose, and buy beverages.
- Decision scope: Drives adoption through tools, playbooks, and capability building. Defines measurement approaches for value realization.
- Stakeholder scope: Interfaces with Commercial, RGM, customer teams, and HI OUs for the activation of insights, ensuring shopper science is integrated across pricing, assortment, promotions, and trade investment decisions.
- Operating model: Supports markets and system through training, routines, and toolkits.
Key Responsibilities & Accountability
- Build and lead the global Shopper Activation Science capability, integrating shopper insights, analytical modeling, experimentation frameworks, and decision science to elevate category and commercial plans across channels, markets and categories.
- Develop a comprehensive understanding of omnichannel shopper behavior, using advanced analytics, qualitative and quantitative research, behavioral science, and shopper usage and penetration data to decode motivations, drivers, missions and barriers that ultimately influence choice.
- Create global guidance on shopper segmentation, targets, journeys, and path‑to‑purchase frameworks that enable segmented execution strategies with flexibility to adapt to local realities and market contexts.
- Build scalable activation assets (decision trees, guardrails, opportunity maps) and drive their adoption including category growth narratives and decision frameworks designed for system alignment.
- Embed shopper and purchasing insights into RGM routines (pricing, promotion, pack/architecture decision support) through tools and playbooks.
- Own measurement frameworks linking activation to commercial impact and ROI.
- Collaborate with digital, technology, and data teams to enhance data sources, strengthen analytical capabilities and advance the use of AI and predictive tools in shopper analysis.
- Lead experimentation and in‑market testing (pricing, promotions, in store stimuli, retail media, digital shelf, pack design & architecture) to improve decisions and performance prediction.
- Translate insights and science into commercial narratives, business cases and customer selling stories that position Coca‑Cola as a strategic, insights‑led partner.
- Co‑develop advanced tools and capability plans to embed shopper science into daily commercial routines (forecasting models, scenario planning, decision dashboards).
- Establish and lead global routines, including a Shopper Science community with OU shopper leads, to share learning and standardize practices.
- Establish global routines, communities of best practices, and capability‑building programs to elevate shopper science expertise across the Coca Cola system.
CANDIDATE PROFILE
- For this role we are looking for a commercially oriented insights leader who can transform science into scalable tools and routines, drive enterprise‑wide adoption, and demonstrate impact through clear, measurable business results.
Experience & Background
- 10–15 years in Shopper Insights, Commercial insights Strategy and/or Insights Activation roles.
- Proven experience operationalizing insights into frontline tools and routines.
- Experience engaging customer teams and market leadership.
- Experience applying shopper or behavioral insights into scalable decision tools and routines.
- Ability to build toolkits/playbooks and embed them into operating routines.
- Change leadership and capability‑building expertise.
- Measurement discipline: linking actions to outcomes and ROI.
Senior Director, Purchasing Science employer: The Coca-Cola Company
Coca-Cola is an exceptional employer, offering a dynamic work culture that fosters innovation and collaboration in the heart of Atlanta. With a strong commitment to employee growth, we provide extensive training and development opportunities, empowering our team to transform insights into impactful commercial strategies. Join us to be part of a global community that values diversity, creativity, and the pursuit of excellence in shopper science.
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We think you need these skills to ace Senior Director, Purchasing Science
Some tips for your application 🫡
Highlight Your Analytical Skills:In the business intelligence field, showcasing your analytical skills is a must. Make sure your CV includes relevant experience with data analysis tools, programming languages like SQL or Python, and any projects where you've interpreted complex data sets to drive business decisions.
Showcase Your Business Acumen:Don't just focus on data; show us how you can apply your insights to real-world business problems. Highlight projects where you made a tangible impact on company performance, and be prepared to explain your thought process in your cover letter.
Tailor Your Documents for Us:When applying for a full-time role at The Coca-Cola Company, tailor your CV and cover letter to reflect our organisational goals and strategies. Mention specific tools and methodologies that align with what we do—this shows you’ve done your homework and are genuinely interested in our mission!
Include Relevant Certifications:Certifications like Google Data Analytics or similar qualifications can really make you stand out in business intelligence. Include these in your application, as they demonstrate your commitment to the field and your willingness to stay current with industry standards.
How to prepare for a job interview at The Coca-Cola Company
✨Show off your analytical skills
In a business intelligence role, you're going to need to demonstrate your analytical prowess. Be prepared to discuss specific tools you've used, like SQL, Tableau, or Power BI. Have real-world examples ready where you’ve turned data into actionable insights – this is what makes us shine in interviews!
✨Practice your technical know-how
Expect some technical questions during the interview that dive deep into your understanding of data modelling and analytics frameworks. Brush up on your knowledge of data warehousing concepts and be ready to tackle any real case scenarios they might present. They’ll want to see how you approach problems using your BI toolkit.
✨Portfolio of Projects
Since it's a full-time role, having a strong portfolio is key! Compile case studies demonstrating your previous projects, preferably showing how your insights led to business improvements. This can help us display how you think through complex datasets and your problem-solving process, which is what employers are keen on seeing.
✨Know their business model
Get familiar with The Coca-Cola Company’s business model and recent data-driven decisions. Be prepared to discuss how your skills can specifically support their objectives or challenges. Understanding their landscape shows that you’re not just a data buff, but you’re also genuinely interested in how BI can impact their bottom line.
