Head of Portfolio Strategy & Innovation – Emerging Markets

Overview

About Flora Food Group

We offer consumers a compelling choice in four growing categories: butters and spreads, creams, liquids and cheeses. We hold leadership positions in many of the 100 countries we operate in, with iconic brands including Flora, Becel+Pro Activ, Blue Band, Country Crock, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Rama, and Violife, together with our local brands and Professional business.

Global branded food champion Flora Food Group offers the next generation of delicious, natural, nutritious food. Our products are more affordable and more sustainable than their dairy equivalents.

Head of Portfolio Strategy & Innovation – Emerging Markets- (2-Year Contract)

Job location:

Dubai, UAE
Hybrid: (Dubai – 3 days/week)

We are looking for a visionary and commercially driven leader to join our Emerging Markets team as Head of Portfolio Strategy & Innovation. This is a high-impact role at the heart of shaping the next generation of food innovation—unlocking growth opportunities, building winning portfolios, and bringing breakthrough products to life across Emerging Markets.

• Own and shape the Emerging Markets portfolio and innovation strategy, defining a clear multi-year roadmap.
• Identify white-space opportunities and build a balanced innovation pipeline across core, adjacent, and breakthrough categories
• Drive consumer-centric innovation using insights, foresight, and testing to ensure commercial success
• Lead cross-functional teams across R&D, Supply Chain, Sales, Finance, and Regulatory to deliver end-to-end innovation
• Act as commercial lead on launches, including positioning, packaging, pricing, claims, and activation
• Simplify and accelerate ways of working through agile, lean, and pragmatic processes
• Track post-launch performance, scaling, pivoting, or stopping initiatives based on results
• Inspire, coach, and build innovation capability and talent across Emerging Markets.

• 14+ years of experience in CPG (ideally food or wellness), leading end-to-end innovation
• Strong experience working across Emerging Markets (Asia, Africa, LATAM)
• Proven track record of translating consumer insights into scalable, breakthrough innovations
• Experience leading complex, cross-functional and cross-regional teams in matrix organization
• Strategic, consumer-obsessed mindset with strong portfolio thinking
• Excellent leadership, gravitas, and executive-level influencing skills
• Ability to simplify complexity and deliver innovation at speed
• Strong storytelling, communication, and stakeholder management capabilities.

Travel required up to 20% across key markets and team hubs.

This is a career-defining opportunity to work with our high-impact brands in a high-energy, high-accountability environment. If you recognise yourself in this profile, apply now and be part of this exciting journey. Apply now at  We prefer to receive your application before 9th February 2026
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We understand your resume might not be up to date and recommend that you apply with what you have or your Linked In Profile. Flora Food Group is dedicated to building an inclusive and diverse workplace, we understand that you might not meet all the requirements stated in the description, but we encourage you to apply anyway. You might be the right candidate for this role or other roles.

Flora Food Group is an employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace and equal opportunities for all. We recruit based only on values, qualifications, performance, skills, behaviours, experience, and knowledge. We ensure job advertisements are free from unintentional bias.

No personal characteristics should be a barrier to joining Flora Food Group. We prohibit discrimination and harassment based on race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, or other personal characteristics.