Director Real Estate

Set the Real Estate strategies to ensure the various brands achieves its expansion program in conjunction with the brand teams. Facilitating site Acquisitions, leasing to assist growth of Brands. Negotiates and achieves development agreements with the franchisors in line with the company’s growth plans.

• Defines the Real Estate strategy aligned to business strategy and objectives across the organization.
• Collaborates with key stakeholders in achievement of new stores opening targets.
• Sets Real Estate budgets and maintains targets set for NSO/ Op Ex and Cap Ex
• Leads, facilitates, communicates, and monitors the implementation of various Real Estate activities and projects
• Approves and directs the strategic and tactical goals, policies, procedures, and SLAs for the Real Estate function.
• Manages and Co-ordinates the NSO / Closure approval process
• Creates individual Site and Closure Approval Packages.
• Co-ordinates the information required for the creation of individual Site & Closure feasibility studies.
• Oversees the approval process for NSO’s / Closures (Brand – IC – Corp)
• Effectively communicates status to all parties as required
• Manages the communication program with franchisors for NSO, Closures
• Creates & Maintains forecasts and Tracking for NSO, Closures
• Develops & maintains Tracking & Reporting tools to assess performance against Budget for NSO, Closure, Rent.
• Monitors actuals / forecasts against DA’s including assessment against brand specific incentives to maximise savings for the company
• Creates & maintains performance tracking tools to assess NSO performance against KPI’s (Sales Hit Rate, EBITDA Hit Rate, IRR%)
• Lead coordinator for all brand related elements of the Real Estate Budgets including NSO, Closures, Rent, Capex, Closure Timings etc
• Ensures SLAs are defined, reported, and monitored for all major Real Estate services
• Responsible for ongoing estate management, and rental reduction negotiations.
• Reviews and approves succession planning for Real Estate Key positions to comply with succession planning process
• Accountable for ensuring the first and second line of successors are prepared for identified critical and key roles/positions to ensure timely readiness of employees to assume those roles.
• Translates and cascades our purpose, vision, and strategy execution to the team to instil ownership mindset and motivation to act.
• Ensures company expectations as regards of tools, resources, systems are rightfully communicated, cascaded for the buy-in and adhered to by the team.
• Role models compliance with Company processes, internal policies, code of conduct and core value behaviours.
• Accountable for team performance – coaches, mentors the team for KPI’s realization in line with Company culture.
• Follows and teaches the team to live by the company people practices (throughout the company people cycle, starting with hiring, onboarding through training, development and when necessary, exit);
  Coaches the team for personal development, has identified successor/s and is a mentor for cross functional teams to support company growth
• Plans, monitors and adheres best allocation of resources within the budget allocation in line with Annual Operating Plan guidelines. Coaches the team to adhere to the above.

• BSc/BA in business administration, finance, engineering, or relevant field.
• Master’s degree or MBA will be a plus

• Minimum 10 years of experience in Real Estate, with minimum 5 years within QSR, Retail, or Hospitality industry
• Proven experience leading regional teams across multiple locations/markets
• Experience managing large-scale budgets
• Strong exposure to store expansion, site acquisition, leasing, and closures in a multi-brand environment
• Prior experience working in the MENA region is essential

• Thorough understanding of restaurants business and trends
• Strong understanding of Retail or Hospitality

• Strong leadership, coaching and mentoring skills
• Ability to build relationships with land lords and key growth partners
• Highly developed negotiation, consensus building and communication skills
• Strong strategic and business acumen
• Ability to analyze problems and strategize for better solutions