Location(s):

United States of America

City/Cities:

Atlanta

Travel Required:

00% - 25%

Relocation Provided:

No

Job Posting End Date:

March 13, 2026

Shift:

Job Description Summary:

Our North America Innovation Center sits at the heart of The Coca-Cola Company’s next chapter of growth. We are committed to transforming and evolving our organization and ambitions — bringing our people closer to the consumer, continuously raising the bar, and embracing digitalization to enable sustainable growth.

We are looking for a transformational leader to build, inspire, and empower high-performing teams that fuel the innovation pipeline with bold ideas and turn them into real-world impact. This role is not about maintaining the status quo; it is about setting direction, unlocking opportunity, and driving valuable breakthrough innovation at scale.

 You will lead diverse teams with deep product development expertise to deliver a strong and balanced portfolio of meaningful innovation — accelerating growth and shaping the future of the organization.

Job Purpose Summary

As Director, Product Development, you will lead and develop a team of talented product developers, setting the strategy for product development in your category and prioritizing resources to deliver key initiatives to accelerate bottom- and top-line growth. You will oversee a portfolio of high‑impact beverage innovations, ensuring concepts are translated into commercially viable products through strong technical rigor and cross‑functional collaboration. You will also build and drive a robust 3–5‑year innovation pipeline in close partnership with Global Category Leads and OU Innovation Hubs. This role balances strategic leadership with technical stewardship, coaching leaders, building team capability, and shaping critical decisions across formulation, quality, regulatory, and manufacturing readiness

What You’ll Do

• Adapt global technical roadmaps into products, packaging, and processes with local resonance and regulatory alignment. 
• Align on the prioritized initiatives (new product launch, superiority, tax and regulation, productivity) for the category with OU Innovation Hub, OU TISC and Global category Leads.
• Prioritize and manage resources to deliver committed plans.
• Develop products for consumer test with the best ingredients and process to enable superiority, scalability, and profitability.
• Champion a culture of creativity, speed, and excellence in product development. 
• Ensure Stage Gate process compliance.
• Anticipate and mitigate risks — from formulation stability to regulatory compliance — before they affect launch. 
• Transfer critical technical knowledge to plants and market teams to deliver flawless, first-time-right execution. 
• Drive project post-review and translate learning to an action plan for continuous improvement.
• Partner with Ou Hub and Category Leads to fuel the 3-5 years pipeline
• Introduce digital efficiencies that enhance speed, reduce complexity, and elevate quality. 
• Develop next-gen technical talent, embedding data fluency, design thinking, and collaborative innovation. 
• Promote diversity, inclusion, and an entrepreneurial mindset within the innovation center. 

What You’ll Need

• Bachelor’s/Master’s in Food Science, Chemistry, Nutrition, Chemical Engineering, or similar.
• 10+ years delivering successful product innovation in FMCG/beverage/food, including senior leadership experience.
• Proven track record of turning insights into market-leading products.
• Strategic thinker with strong cross-cultural leadership, stakeholder influence, and commercial acumen.
• Ability to
  • Translate strategy into clear team priorities and executable plans.
  • Stay on top of technical, consumer and competitive trends and insights.
  • Encourage creativity within the team and removes barriers to idea generation. Build 'out-side in" capability in the team.     
  • Ensure the team applies the right expertise to deliver strong outcomes.         
  • Guides the team through complex problem-solving and trade-off decisions.
  • Lead, motivate, and develop a team to deliver consistent results. High level X- functional leadership.     
  • Make people and business decisions impacting team performance and business delivery (High impact and multi-year).
• Fluent in English; regional languages a plus.
• Regional travel up to 10–15%.

  

What We Can Do For You  

• Purpose Driven: Purpose driven approach that empowers our people to protect the environment and communities we serve while delivering safe & quality products.  

• Global Connections: Allows you to develop, enhance and maintain global connections that allow us to move faster and learn from others.  

• Community of Belonging: We’re an organization that believes our ability to continually grow and build the right atmosphere where people feel safe and empowered, lets you bring your best self to work.   

The Coca-Cola Company will not offer sponsorship for employment status (including, but not limited to, H1-B visa status and other employment-based nonimmigrant visas) for this position. Accordingly, all applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis and must not require The Coca-Cola Company's sponsorship to continue to work legally in the United States.

Skills:

Chemistry, Communication, Continual Improvement Process, Data Compilation, Environmental Science, Food Safety and Sanitation, Food Sciences, Food Technology, Green Solutions, Laboratory Testing, Microbiological Test, Product Development, Quality Control (QC), Research and Development Operations (Inactive), Sensory Testing, Waterfall Model

Pay Range:

$149,000 - $173,000

Base pay offered may vary depending on geography, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. A full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the position, is offered.

Annual Incentive Reference Value Percentage:

30

Annual Incentive reference value is a market-based competitive value for your role. It falls in the middle of the range for your role, indicating performance at target.

Our Purpose and Growth Culture:

We are taking deliberate action to nurture an inclusive culture that is grounded in our company purpose, to refresh the world and make a difference. We act with a growth mindset, take an expansive approach to what’s possible and believe in continuous learning to improve our business and ourselves. We focus on four key behaviors – curious, empowered, inclusive and agile – and value how we work as much as what we achieve. We believe that our culture is one of the reasons our company continues to thrive after 130+ years. Visit Our Purpose and Vision to learn more about these behaviors and how you can bring them to life in your next role at Coca-Cola.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class. When we collect your personal information as part of a job application or offer of employment, we do so in accordance with industry standards and best practices and in compliance with applicable privacy laws.