Senior Projects & Innovation Lead (MENA)

MBRF; Dubai; On-site; AED 350,000 - 550,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation package

Career growth opportunities

Job summary

MBRF in Dubai is seeking a senior professional to own FMCG category management and portfolio initiatives. You will lead cross-functional projects, drive growth, and manage performance metrics across launches and campaigns.

Fluent in English, with 6+ years in FMCG and experience guiding teams. An MBA is preferred. This role offers a dynamic, global environment and strong development opportunities in Dubai.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of progressive FMCG experience with ownership of a category or portfolio.
• Experience in Category Management, Marketing, Business Planning, or Commercial functions.
• Proven track record of category performance and cross-functional projects.
• Leadership experience preferred.
• Fluent in English; Arabic is advantageous.
• Strong analytics and decision-making for commercial outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Work alongside the Projects & Innovation Manager to build and refine the long-term innovation pipeline, consolidating opportunities, strategic fit, expected value, timing, dependencies and resource requirements to support portfolio prioritization.
• Maintain accurate, up-to-date portfolio data, including project status, milestones, risks, decisions and next steps.
• Support project management in line with the company’s governance model, coordinating stage-gate requirements, project plans, documentation, meeting routines and decision forums.
• Track project scope, timelines, deliverables, risks, issues and interdependencies. Proactively flag deviations, support mitigation plans and escalates matters requiring decisions to keep initiatives on track.
• Coordinate cross-functional inputs to support business cases, launch readiness and project execution.
• Prepare clear portfolio dashboards, project status reports and executive updates, distilling complex information into key messages, required decisions and actions.
• Monitor innovation performance after launch against approved business cases and targets, including sales, distribution, margin, availability, forecast accuracy and other relevant launch KPIs.
• Identify performance gaps and drive corrective actions with key stakeholders.
• Facilitate post-launch reviews and capture lessons learned, applying insights to corrective actions, future projects and innovation processes.
• Identify opportunities to improve project management tools, templates, routines, data quality and ways of working to strengthen portfolio governance and organizational learning.

Skills

FMCG experience

Category management

Portfolio management

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Education

MBA or Master’s degree

Bachelor’s degree in Business/Marketing

Job description

MBRF in Dubai is seeking a senior professional to own FMCG category management and portfolio initiatives. You will lead cross-functional projects, drive growth, and manage performance metrics across launches and campaigns.

Fluent in English, with 6+ years in FMCG and experience guiding teams. An MBA is preferred. This role offers a dynamic, global environment and strong development opportunities in Dubai.