Chief Human Resources Officer — Food And Beverage Platform

The mandate

A regional food-and-beverage platform has absorbed commodity, packaging, freight and labour inflation while protecting volume and customer service. Pricing and procurement actions have helped, but gross margin remains below the board’s target. The remaining opportunity crosses organisation boundaries: fragmented category and country decisions, duplicated planning, route-to-market productivity and incentives that reward shipment or volume without sufficient regard to mix, returns and service cost.

The board has rejected a broad headcount target. The business needs clearer accountability, stronger commercial and supply leaders and better use of frontline capacity. Country teams require enough authority to manage customers and regulation; categories and shared operations require scale. Earlier attempts to redraw the matrix added forums without changing decisions and damaged trust among experienced local leaders.

The Chief Human Resources Officer will lead the organisation and workforce side of margin recovery. The remit spans operating model, leadership selection, workforce planning, reward, frontline productivity, talent, succession and employee relations across approximately 1,525 employees and material partners. The CHRO must ensure that productivity claims are operationally real and do not depend on unsafe workload, hidden contractor growth or deterioration in customer execution.

This is a planned replacement based on site in Dubai and reporting to the Chief Executive or designated executive sponsor. The outgoing CHRO will complete an agreed transition. The role covers markets across the Middle East and wider international region and requires regular time with factories, distributors and field sales teams.

Why this seat is open

The incumbent is retiring after building the regional people infrastructure. The board is changing the specification for the next phase: the successor must carry enterprise organisation and productivity decisions, not only support country HR. An orderly handover is available and no remediation or conduct issue is attached to the departure.

What you will own

• Redesign category, country, commercial and supply decision rights around pricing execution, assortment, promotion, demand, service and margin.
• Lead workforce planning across approximately 1,525 employees and partners, linking roles and capacity to the approved value levers.
• Assess and select senior leaders for the target model and manage transitions transparently, including where long-tenured country authority changes.
• Align incentives across sales, distribution, category and supply to revenue quality, mix, returns, availability, cost and cash.
• Improve frontline route and supervisor productivity through territory, workload, skills, tools and management changes rather than blunt staffing ratios.
• Build commercial, revenue-growth-management, procurement, planning and operations capability with credible successors in priority markets.
• Govern employee relations, localisation, mobility and contractor use across the region, ensuring compliance and sustainable workload.
• Establish people measures that connect organisation change to margin and service without claiming benefits finance and operations cannot reconcile.

The first 12 months

• Days 1–90: Diagnose decision flow and workforce economics in representative markets, assess leadership and identify productivity assumptions requiring evidence. Agree design principles and interim accountabilities, protect critical talent and stop uncoordinated local restructuring.
• Months 4–9: Implement leadership and organisation changes, reset incentives and launch frontline productivity pilots in selected routes and sites. Build capability plans and complete required consultations and transitions. Ensure finance validates people-related benefits and hidden capacity consequences.
• Months 10–12: Demonstrate margin and productivity improvement with stable availability, safety and customer service. Extend proven changes, close weak pilots and confirm succession and workforce plans for the next two years.

What the board will measure

• Gross-margin and productivity improvement attributable to named organisation, incentive or capability actions and reconciled by finance.
• Customer availability, returns and service maintained or improved while frontline roles and routes change.
• Incentives producing better mix, price realisation and cash without unintended channel loading or unsafe targets.
• Workforce and contractor cost within plan, with overtime, vacancy and workload evidence visible.
• Critical leadership and succession coverage across country, category, commercial and supply roles.
• Employee-relations and localisation obligations met through change, with regretted attrition controlled.

The person

You are a CHRO, regional people leader, commercial organisation executive or supply-chain HR leader with 22–28 years in food, beverage, consumer goods or another route-intensive business. You have delivered an organisation-led margin or productivity programme across multiple countries. You have supported at least 1,250 employees and led a people team of at least 50.

You understand how frontline and matrix choices affect economics. You can distinguish genuine role removal from work shifted to distributors, contractors or overtime and can show how incentive and territory changes altered mix, service or returns. You have selected leaders through a country-versus-category redesign and maintained execution during transition.

Relevant backgrounds include branded food, beverages, tobacco, personal care or other distributed consumer businesses. Middle East experience is strongly preferred, including localisation and varied employment models. A corporate HR background without field, plant and commercial operating depth will not fit.

The role is based on site in Dubai with frequent regional travel. International candidates may qualify with relocation. The CHRO must be willing to challenge both finance assumptions and people-function orthodoxy and to measure organisation change through real operating outcomes.

Compensation and terms

The indicative base is AED 1,600,000–2,200,000, supplemented by annual incentive and long-term participation. Measures will cover organisation value, frontline productivity, service, leadership, succession and workforce sustainability. This is a permanent planned replacement. Relocation and substantiated forfeited awards may be considered.

Confidentiality

The company, markets, employees and margin programme are confidential. Identifying information will be released only after relevance and safeguards are established. Applicants must not approach distributors, retailers or employees to infer the organisation.

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