Regional Head of Modern Trade – Asia

About the role

The Head of Modern Trade sets the regional direction for modern trade across Asia, partnering with local market leadership to strengthen retailer relationships, raise commercial standards and drive sustainable growth.

Key responsibilities

• Shape and deliver the Asia modern trade strategy in line with regional growth objectives, and build channel, customer and category strategies that drive profitable growth
• Develop executive relationships with key regional and priority local retailers, support major commercial negotiations and unlock new distribution, ranging and partnership opportunities
• Design and roll out a single Joint Business Planning (JBP) framework across Asia, ensure every priority customer has a documented annual JBP with clear review cycles and governance, and track delivery of customer commitments
• Build regional dashboards and set common commercial KPIs aligned to country plans, monitor sales, profitability, promotional effectiveness and execution quality, and improve forecasting, promotional ROI and pricing discipline with Supply Chain and Operations
• Lead regular regional commercial reviews with Country Managers
• Build modern trade capability through coaching, mentoring and structured development, establish common ways of working and standard commercial processes, lead regional modern trade forums and support succession planning and talent development

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Commerce, Marketing or a related field
• Significant senior leadership experience in modern trade within FMCG or fresh produce
• Proven track record managing strategic relationships with major retailers
• Deep, hands-on experience designing and embedding Joint Business Planning
• Accountability for sales growth, profitability and customer investment
• Experience leading multi-country or regional commercial teams
• Cultural agility across diverse Asian markets and willingness to travel regularly across the region

Required skills

• Strong influencing and stakeholder management skills, comfortable leading through a matrix
• Excellent analytical and commercial decision-making ability