General Manager – Bakery Category Leadership

Job Description

General Management Sr. Director – Cape Town HQ | PepsiCo

The Tone:
This is a full-time role at PepsiCo, located in Cape Town, South Africa, offering a critical leadership opportunity within our bakery business. As a global leader in convenient foods and beverages, PepsiCo relies on this position to design and implement the overall strategy for a vital category. The role ensures the daily production, distribution, and sales of short shelf-life products, coordinating 13 manufacturing facilities across South Africa to deliver freshness and quality to customers in both modern and traditional trade channels. This General Management position is crucial for maintaining efficiency, upholding high standards, and driving significant growth for the business.

The TL;DR
• Role: Senior Leadership
• Type: Full-time
• Location: South Africa
• Mission: Owns the overall strategy, operation, and growth of the bakery business across South Africa.
• Tech Stack: MS Office, SAP or equivalent ERP system

What You’ll Actually Do
• Lead Strategy & Growth: Lead the development of the Bakery Category strategy, translating business objectives into actionable plans to drive portfolio top-line growth, meet medium to long-term targets for revenue, market share, and profitability, and ensure cross-functional alignment.
• Manage End-to-End Operations: Oversee every aspect of the bakery business operations, from production across 13 manufacturing facilities to daily distribution and sales for short shelf-life products in modern and traditional trade channels, ensuring efficient coordination and product freshness.
• Drive Brand & Innovation: Direct marketing, R&D, and commercial teams to build brands, develop insight-driven marketing plans, set pricing strategies, and drive innovation with new products that cater to consumer needs and meet category objectives.
• Optimize Performance & Compliance: Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance operational effectiveness, reduce end-to-end waste and costs, increase productivity (aiming for OTIF > 95%), and ensure strict governance, legal compliance, and total integrity in financial reporting.
• Foster Talent & Relationships: Champion the SA Culture blueprint and culture transformation, build and develop top talent through coaching and mentoring, and manage key top-to-top relationships with customers across all brands.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Post graduate degree in business or a related field; Senior Leadership career level.
• Experience: Minimum of 10 years of relevant experience, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership position.
• Skills: Collaboration, Strategic focus, Project management, Strong interpersonal and communications skills, Knowledge of the market.