SSA OTC & Wellness Lead

Welcome to Haleon. We’re a purpose-driven, world-class consumer company putting everyday health in the hands of millions. In just three years since our launch, we’ve grown, evolved and are now entering an exciting new chapter – one filled with bold ambitions and enormous opportunity.

Our trusted portfolio of brands – including Sensodyne®, Panadol®, Advil®, Voltaren®, Theraflu®, Otrivin®, and Centrum® – lead in resilient and growing categories. What sets us apart is our unique blend of deep human understanding and trusted science.

Now it’s time to fully realise the full potential of our business and our people. We do this through our Win as One strategy. It puts our purpose – to deliver better everyday health with humanity – at the heart of everything we do. It unites us, inspires us, and challenges us to be better every day, driven by our agile, performance-focused culture.

Hello. We’re Haleon. A new world-leading consumer health company. Shaped by all who join us. Together, we’re improving everyday health for billions of people. By growing and innovating our global portfolio of category-leading brands – including Sensodyne, Panadol, Advil, Voltaren, Theraflu, Otrivin, and Centrum – through a unique combination of deep human understanding and trusted science. What’s more, we’re achieving it in a company that we’re in control of. In an environment that we’re co-creating. And a culture that’s uniquely ours. Care to join us. It isn’t a question.

With category leading brands such as Sensodyne, Voltaren and Centrum, built on trusted science and human understanding, and combined with our passion, knowledge and expertise, we’re uniquely placed to do this and to grow a strong, successful business.

This is an exciting time to join us and help shape the future. It’s an opportunity to be part of something special.

About the role

As the SSA OTC & Wellness Lead, you will be at the forefront of our marketing efforts, responsible for driving brand performance and ensuring flawless execution of marketing strategies within Sub Saharan Africa. You will lead a team of brand activation specialists, translating globally and regionally developed plans into impactful local marketing activities. This role is critical in bridging the gap between the Operating Unit (OU) and local markets, ensuring our brands win in the marketplace by resonating with consumers and shoppers alike.

Role Responsibilities

• Execute all local marketing activities based on plans developed by the global category & OU team, ensuring flawless in-market delivery of OU-led brand plans across channels.
• Drive strong financial and commercial rigour across brand activation, contributing to brand P&L delivery through effective A&P investment management, optimisation and ROI focus, with disciplined tracking of spend and performance against agreed financial and commercial KPIs across both OU and Cluster teams.
• Deliver in-year brand performance, ensuring long-term plans underpin and guide shorter-term decision-making in execution.
• Amplify local marketing plans with suitable activations with customers and shoppers.
• Support the local market CCC (Cash Conversion Cycle) and performance tracking rhythms.
• Provide the OU team with key market learnings and insights to help shape the appropriate tailoring of global priorities, plans, and assets for the OU and local markets.
• Directly manage and develop the brand activation teams in the market to deliver all relevant brand KPIs across financials, consumption, penetration, brand health, and the innovation pipeline.
• Work collaboratively with local Function teams (incl. ComEx, Media, Sales) to ensure integrated and effective activation
• Provide people leadership and coaching to team members, fostering capability, accountability and high performance through clear expectations, regular feedback and development aligned to OU objectives.

Why you?

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, Business, or a related field.
• Proven experience in a marketing role with a strong focus on brand activation and in-market execution.
• Demonstrated experience in managing and leading teams to achieve performance targets.
• Strong understanding of brand building, campaign deployment, and the overall marketing ecosystem.
• Solid commercial and financial acumen, with experience managing brand KPIs.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working in a matrix organization, with a proven ability to collaborate with regional/global teams and local cross-functional partners.
• Ability to interpret market data, consumer and shopper insights, and competitive dynamics to refine execution strategies.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the ability to build alignment and drive decisions forward.
• Comfortable operating in a complex and ambiguous environment.
• A proactive and results-oriented mindset, with a passion for executional excellence.

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Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

At Haleon we embrace our diverse workforce by creating an inclusive environment that celebrates our unique perspectives, generates curiosity to create unmatched understanding of each other, and promotes fair and equitable outcomes for everyone.

We’re striving to create a climate where we celebrate our diversity in all forms by treating each other with respect, listening to different viewpoints, supporting our communities, and creating a workplace where your authentic self belongs and thrives.

We believe in an agile working culture for all our roles. If flexibility is important to you, we encourage you to explore with our hiring team what the opportunities are.

 Job Posting End Date

Equal Opportunities

Haleon are committed to mobilising our purpose in a way that represents the diverse consumers and communities who rely on our brands every day. It guides us in creating an inclusive culture, where different backgrounds and views are valued and respected – all in support of understanding and best serving the needs of our consumers and unleashing the full potential of our people. It’s important to us that Haleon is a place where all our employees feel they truly belong.

During the application process, we may ask you to share some personal information, which is entirely voluntary. This information ensures we meet certain regulatory and reporting obligations and supports the development, refinement, and execution of our inclusion and belonging programmes that are open to all Haleon employees. 

The personal information you provide will be kept confidential, used only for legitimate business purposes, and will never be used in making any employment decisions, including hiring decisions.

Adjustment or Accommodations Request

If you require a reasonable adjustment or accommodation or other assistance to apply for a job at Haleon at any stage of the application process, please let your recruiter know by providing them with a description of specific adjustments you are requesting. We’ll provide all reasonable adjustments to support you throughout the recruitment process and treat all information you provide us in confidence. 

Note to candidates

The Haleon recruitment team will contact you using a Haleon email account (@haleon.com). If you are not sure whether the email you received is from Haleon, please get in touch.