Marketing Manager

Location: Woking

Department: Marketing

Type of contract: Permanent - Full-Time

Marketing Manager:

Key Purpose Statement:

Lead AUK's local brands portfolio across London Pride, Cornish Orchards and Meantime, ensuring each brand has a clear role, ambition, growth plan and execution model. This role provides the senior strategic capability required to translate the agreed local brand strategy into IAP/MTP choices, cross-functional priorities and measurable commercial delivery. The role will directly lead Meantime and the local brands innovation agenda, while providing meaningful direction, coaching and governance for Fuller’s and Cornish Orchards.

Key Accountabilities:

Portfolio Strategy and Planning :

Lead the annual and mid-term planning process for the local brands portfolio, ensuring each brand’s activity, investment and commercial asks are linked to its agreed role and ambition.

Translate the local brand strategy into clear IAP priorities, MTP inputs, investment cases, sequencing and cross-functional decisions.

Ensure London Pride, Cornish Orchards and Meantime are not treated equally by default, but resourced according to portfolio role, commercial opportunity and evidence of growth.

Brand Ownership and Execution:

Directly own Meantime as brand lead, creating clarity on brand positioning, product architecture, priority hubs and disciplined experimentation.

Provide strategic oversight and challenge for Fuller’s and Cornish Orchards plans, ensuring brand managers have significant ownership but benefit from senior direction.

Ensure plans connect brand equity, comms, social, trade marketing, distribution, activation and commercial execution.

Lead development of strategy and execution of each brand home: Fuller’s Griffin Brewery, Western Manor Farm, Duloe and The Dial – Home of Meantime.

Innovation Leadership:

Lead the local brands innovation pipeline, identifying and shaping opportunities to drive incremental volume, fill brewery capacity and strengthen the long-term role of the local brands portfolio.

Create clear innovation guardrails: where to experiment, where to scale, where to stop and how to avoid unnecessary complexity.

Partner with brewing, supply chain, sales, category, finance and PRGM to build robust business cases for new products, range changes and test-and-learn opportunities.

Commercial and Performance Management:

Own performance tracking across local brands, connecting brand health, distribution, ROS, volume, margin, mix and innovation success metrics.

Work with Sales, Trade Marketing, Category, Insight, Finance and PRGM to turn brand strategy into customer priorities and measurable commercial actions.

Lead recommendations on where additional DME or pay-to-play investment should be unlocked, based on evidence and strategic fit.

Leadership and Talent:

Manage, coach and nurture local brand talent, setting clear expectations while giving brand managers genuine ownership and development opportunity.

Build capability in strategic thinking, brand planning, commercial judgement, agency management and cross-functional influence.

Role-model a challenger local brands mindset: pace, creativity, disciplined risk-taking and willingness to behave differently from global brands where appropriate.

Stakeholder and Agency Management:

Lead senior stakeholder alignment across Marketing, Sales, Finance, Insight, Category, Trade Marketing, PRGM, Supply Chain and Production.

Set clear agency scopes, briefs and evaluation criteria, ensuring external partners deliver against brand strategy and commercial priorities.

Build internal local brand love so the business understands each brand’s role and can sell the portfolio with confidence.

Experience Required:

Significant brand management experience in FMCG, ideally premium drinks, with evidence of leading brand strategy and delivery.

Experience managing innovation or product pipeline development from opportunity identification through to commercialisation.

Proven experience leading annual planning, integrated campaigns, agency partners and cross-functional teams.

Experience managing and developing direct reports or high-potential talent.

Strong understanding of UK on-trade and off-trade dynamics.

Key Attributes of the Successful Person:

Clear, confident communicator who can influence up, down and across the organisation.

Resourceful operator who can balance big-company discipline with the pace and pragmatism required in a small team.

Naturally curious about consumers, customers, culture, channels and commercial performance.

Positive, proactive and accountable, with a bias for action and learning.

Comfortable with ambiguity, qualified risk and constructive challenge.

Collaborative and generous with knowledge, while able to make clear recommendations and choices.

We are committed to nurturing a workplace where we celebrate and respect difference, and support everyone to be true to who they are! At Asahi Europe and International we believe you can SHINE AS YOU ARE - no matter your age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disabilities, religion, or beliefs. We want to support you to be courageous in your individuality and to know that whoever you are and whatever your circumstances, you can belong with us without having to conform.