Head of Digital Marketing, Media & dCommerce

With 3.4 billion people in over 190 countries using our products every day, Unilever is a business that makes a real impact on the world. Work on brands that are loved and improve the lives of our consumers and the communities around us. We are driven by our purpose: to make sustainable living commonplace, and it is our belief that doing business the right way drives superior performance. At the heart of what we do is our people – we believe that when our people work with purpose, we will create a better business and a better world. 

At Unilever, your career will be a unique journey, grounded in our inclusive, collaborative, and flexible working environment. We don’t believe in the ‘one size fits all’ approach and instead we will equip you with the tools you need to shape your own future.

Unilever portfolio includes four different business groups to drive the business growth ambition:

• Beauty & well-being Business group, which includes categories such as Hair care, skin Care, Prestige Beauty, and Health and well Being

• Personal Care Business group, which is formed of a portfolio of categories such as Oral care, Deodorant and skin cleansing which is used daily by consumers all over the world to bring hygiene and drive skinification and beauty.

• Foods Business group including undisputed leading brands in foods market such as Knorr and Hellmann Brands that brings pleasurable food experience in every home.

• Home care Business Group with a portfolio of brands such as OMO, Comfort and Jiff which are leaders of Fabric leaning, Fabric sensation and home and Hygiene in many markets.

Unilever has created Unilever’s Digital Marketing, Media and Commerce (DMC) Function that is a seamlessly integrated media buying, social influence, digital commerce function to drives Unilever Power Brands functional and emotional messages to consumers within its different regional clusters.

JOB PURPOSE

Unilever is looking for a successful regional Media & Digital Head for its North Africa (NALI), Levant, & Iraq region.  NALI Media Head is a leadership role within the organization responsible for developing, planning and executing different categories’ media strategies, ensuring that Brands’ messages is effectively communicated across traditional and digital media channels. Potential candidate will lead and implement all digital media, retail media & digital commerce, recommends digital agenda for NALI region, and manage and maintain relationships with key media partners.  The candidate should balance logic and creativity, operations and strategy. The manager should appreciate both strategic/creative tasks and daily operations. This role involves handling multiple stakeholders and managing priorities and schedules.

You will learn from brilliant business leaders and colleagues in a truly global and diverse culture to ultimately become a better you. 

WHAT WILL YOUR MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES BE

Drive Best in class Holistic Media Planning and execution

• Lead and coordinate and deliver best in class holistic media plans (offline and online) for the BU that fully leverage data and insights to target media effectively, that are accountable for building brand power.

• Responsible for driving Social First Media execution via the Media agency ensuring that we have the right Social Rich Media channels to drive the Many to Many Social First Adverting Strategy.

• Work with the Performance marketing / retailer media experts to drive optimisations both on and off the retailer.

• Build and manage NALI Cairo hub focusing on Driving the digital ecosystem including social first on our power brands (such as content creation, community management, websites, search, audience segmentation, data collection and retargeting, social communities and beyond) and elevating the consumer experience through seamless journey continuously.

• Leading creative transformation such as modular adaptation and being visionary in setting an AI and creative technology roadmap for the categories (leading pilots and sharing learnings in the brand communities & DMC’s).

• Leading building social media strategy and execution as it pertains to building communities and developing partnerships to extend digital reach, working with digital specialists and brand managers across the region to achieve this.

Drive efficiencies through rigour and relationships

• Engage directly with external media owners to deliver the very best value for Unilever across all levers – price (annual deals, budget complexities, sponsorship deals), innovation, and best practice.

• Lead the external media agenda and will include relationships throughout the industry both with traditonal media players & digital players e.g.: META, TikTok,  Google, etc..

• Lead the ‘One Unilever’ country activities, including investment across Business Units within that country to negotiate best commercial rates and JBPs with Media Owners/Vendors.

• Management of media agencies with core elements of media trading and contractual delivery, third-party audits, and management of resource and capability review.

Drive best practice and thought leadership

• Land core cross functional capabilities and best practice locally.

• Drive Media and digital media innovation – pioneering the future of media and data driven marketing through a continuous test, learn and scale approach.

• Designs regional BU media plan and allocate budgets for holistic plans that covers all media and all platforms including retailer media.

• Manages media activation based on marketing plan/ activity calendar incl. mobilising/coordinating digital hub channel specialists to deploy locally.

• Collaborates with CD / dComm teams to ensure the full end-to-end plan works on and offline with key customers.

• Work with the agencies / external partners to bring to media plan execution to life.

• Maximise efficiencies via value extractions with external partners / agencies for BU /market.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED TO SUCCEED

Experiences & Qualifications

• Degree holders in Marketing and/or Digital related disciplines preferred.

• 10-15 years of experience in FMCG/Media Agency background desired.

• Advanced understanding of the media & digital, brand communication landscape, and managing advertising/media budgets.

• Experience in holistic brand communication management at a large brand, or cross-brand leadership at an agency.

• An understanding of the pop culture for different demographics and being able to use this cultural understanding and open mindedness to help forge partnerships with authenticity and sensitivity across PC, beauty and Nutrition categories.

• A committed team builder with a high passion for growth & excellence in digital capabilities and experiences.

• A constant learner, curious in creative technology and excited with the potential to pioneer

• A doer that not only dreams about opportunities about but makes things happen and takes advantage of emerging trends

• A forward-thinking approach to drive innovation into media and data strategies and plans.

• Experience in managing complex stakeholders across matrixed organizations, with excellent communication skills.

• Experience in data-driven marketing and performance/e-commerce.

• Exposure to disciplines such as CRM, Mar-Tech, and Ad-Tech platform management.

• Excellent leadership & people management skills.

• Problem-solving mindset, with the ability to work flexibly and adapt to changing media and market conditions.

• A resilient and self-motivated spirit

Additional Desirable Experience

• Interest in media, digital and tech innovations, including using AI platforms are desirable

• Building Talent & Teams

• Deep Brand and Consumer Understanding

• Content Management and influencers management

Skills

• Strong technical understanding of Media Strategy, Planning and Buying processes (for both Traditional Media and Digital Media planning and execution experience)

• Digital Media and Marketing understanding and Capability

• Media Value Chain Management

• Budget-setting and management (including ‘trade-offs’; ‘sacrifices’ and consequence analysis and ‘alternatives-design’)

• Deep Brand and Consumer understanding

• Digital Commerce, especially on business to consumers pure play and Omni channel with some experience on digital shelf

• Data visualization & interpretation leading to actionable insights

• People Management (internal and external)

• Stakeholder management and consultation (internal/external and at all levels)

• Collaboration skills that support multi-stakeholder projects.

• A forward-thinking approach to drive innovation into media and data strategies and plans.

• Problem-solving mindset, with the ability to work flexibly and adapt to changing media and market conditions.

• Strong analytical skills to define, interpret, and respond to data insights.

• Excellent communication skills to align stakeholders and embed best practices.

• Agile and resilient to extreme pressure

Leadership

• You are an inclusive motivator of people. Your team deliver with real passion, growing and learning from each other whilst delivering quick wins.

• You are still responsible for your own results and as a manager, you also need to motivate others to deliver with passion, creating an inclusive and engaging climate around you. You can balance challenge with support and coaching. You understand the wider business context and you are emotionally intelligent enough to motivate people to deliver what is needed.

• Critical SOL (Standards of Leadership) Behaviors

  • PERSONAL MASTERY: Sets high standards for themselves. Has emotional intelligence to take feedback, manage mood and motivations, and build empathy for others.

  • PASSION FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE: Generates intensity and focus to motivate people to deliver results at speed. Takes personal responsibility and accountability for execution and results.

  • TALENT CATALYST: Invests in people – coaches individuals and teams to realize their full potential. Creates an inclusive climate, empowering everyone to be at their best.

  • PURPOSE & SERVICE: Has humility, understanding that leadership is service to others, inside and outside Unilever.

  • CONSUMER LOVE: Invests time inside and outside to understand the needs of consumers.

  • BUSINESS ACUMEN: Creates sustainable growth with purpose, engaging different partners across the system for change.

Unilever embraces diversity and encourages applicants from all walks of life! This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity. 

Unilever is an organisation committed to equity, inclusion and diversity to drive our business results and create a better future, every day, for our diverse employees, global consumers, partners, and communities. We believe a diverse workforce allows us to match our growth ambitions and drive inclusion across the business. At Unilever we are interested in every individual bringing their ‘Whole Self’ to work and this includes you! Thus if you require any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at the time of your application so that we can support you through your recruitment journey.