Director, APAC Strategy

What makes this a great opportunity?

At Suntory Global Spirits, we craft spirits of the highest quality and deliver brilliant experiences to people around the world. Suntory Global Spirits has evolved into the world's third largest leading premium spirits’ company, where each employee is treated like family and trusted with legacy. With our greatest assets - our premium spirits and our people - we are driving growth through impactful marketing, innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit. Suntory Global Spirits is a place where you can come Unleash your Spirit by making an impact each day.

What makes this a great opportunity?

We are looking for a high-performing strategy lead at a director level who has a strong aspiration in the drinks sector and wants to turbocharge their professional growth with a hands-on experience in the industry. This position will report to the VP, APAC Strategy, with exposure to senior leaders, including President, APAC, and other regions and functions globally.
 
This position will contribute to high profile APAC Strategy initiatives, through:
•    The development of Suntory Global Spirits mid- long-term strategies for APAC region
•    The role offers the opportunity to shape the APAC agenda and influence material business decisions.

Role Responsibilities

1.    Shape and drive the APAC strategic agenda, working closely with the VP, APAC Strategy, APAC President and Leadership Team to identify the most important business opportunities and challenges, establish strategic priorities and translate them into clear actions and outcomes.
2.    Develop deep understanding of APAC markets and business performance, proactively connecting market, consumer, customer, competitor, financial and operational insights to identify emerging opportunities, risks and performance gaps. Bring an independent point of view and use insight to challenge and strengthen business thinking and decision-making.
3.    Lead high-priority strategic initiatives from problem definition through to execution, independently framing complex and ambiguous business questions, determining the right analytical approach, mobilising the appropriate stakeholders and expertise, and translating recommendations into executable plans and measurable business impact.
4.    Act as a trusted strategic partner to APAC markets and functional leaders, proactively building strong relationships across the organisation, understanding their businesses and priorities, challenging constructively, and influencing senior stakeholders to align around decisions and drive action.
5.    Drive the APAC strategic planning cycle, including development of the Strategic Plan and Strategic Priorities, ensuring plans are grounded in rigorous business understanding, make clear choices and translate into actionable priorities across markets and functions.
6.    Connect strategy to execution and business performance, maintaining visibility of progress against strategic priorities, identifying where performance or execution is off-track, and working with accountable leaders to surface root causes, make appropriate trade-offs and drive corrective action.
7.    Lead strategic engagement with global leadership and key stakeholders, including ELT and Board-level interactions, ensuring APAC perspectives are grounded in strong business insight and communicated through clear, compelling and decision-oriented recommendations.
8.    Raise the quality of strategic thinking across APAC, bringing external perspectives, analytical rigour and constructive challenge while helping leaders simplify complex issues, make better choices and maintain focus on the highest-value opportunities.

Qualification

•    Degree qualified with 8+ years of relevant strategy, business development or commercial experience, gained through top-tier strategy consulting and/or in-house roles, with significant experience across APAC and strong understanding of Asian markets.
•    Proven track record of translating strategy into execution and measurable business outcomes, including leading change across complex, multi-market organisations.
•    Strong commercial and financial acumen, with the ability to rapidly develop a deep understanding of business performance, market dynamics, consumers, customers and competitors.
•    Experience within a multinational consumer products/FMCG business, the spirits industry and/or an APAC commercial role is highly valued.
•    Exceptional analytical judgement and curiosity — able to get underneath the data, identify what matters, connect disparate information and translate analysis into insight, implications and clear recommendations for action.
•    Strong problem-solving and strategic judgement, with the ability to simplify complex or ambiguous problems, identify the critical business question and focus work on the decisions and outcomes that matter.
•    High degree of ownership and self-direction — proactively identifies priorities, frames problems and drives work from initial question through to business outcome, operating effectively with limited oversight.
•    Strong stakeholder leadership and influencing capability — proactively builds trusted relationships across markets, functions and seniority levels and uses those relationships to develop insight, challenge thinking and drive decisions and action.