Senior Director, Economic Insights & Strategic Foresight

Career Group C, Senior Director reports to Sr. Director II, Customer Strategic Insights

Location: Atlanta

Approx. Travel: 40-70%

The Senior Director, Economist for the Foodservice and On-Premise (FSOP) organization serves as the principal economic advisor and thought leader, driving compelling, data-driven insights that optimize strategic and operational decisions. This role offers vision, forecasting, and guidance for FSOP’s executive leaders, customers, and key industry partners, ensuring the organization maintains a competitive edge in understanding market dynamics and consumer trends.

Summary:
The Senior Director of Economic Insights & Strategic Foresight for the Foodservice and On-Premise (FSOP) organization serves as Coca‑Cola’s forward-looking voice to customers—translating macroeconomic shifts, emerging consumer behaviors, and disruptive market forces into clear, actionable implications for our key customer partners. This role blends economic expertise with futurist thinking, elevating Coca‑Cola’s point of view on the marketplace and helping customers anticipate what’s next.

Primary Responsibilities:

Macro Landscape & Future Trends Leadership

• Monitor, interpret, and synthesize broad external signals—economic indicators, demographic shifts, cultural movements, policy changes, and technology-driven disruptions—to shape Coca‑Cola’s strategic perspective on the future of consumption.
• Develop compelling narratives and frameworks that help customers understand near- and long-term implications on market dynamics, consumer behavior, beverage occasions, and category performance.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to ensure Coca‑Cola’s commercial strategies reflect a future-ready viewpoint.

Industry Engagement & Thought Leadership

• Build and maintain relationships with influential external economists, futurists, think tanks, and consulting groups to keep the organization connected to cutting-edge thinking.
• Serve as a marquee speaker at key customer events, industry forums, and internal leadership sessions—positioning Coca‑Cola as a strategic, insights-driven partner.

Forecasting & Customer-Facing Analysis

• Develop and maintain best-in-class, proprietary, econometric forecasting models to deliver actionable insights on the Foodservice industry and consumer economics. Important elements include eating location traffic, average check, sales, and outlets across channels, segments, regions, related industries, and countries.
• Lead traffic and demand forecasting for key customers, integrating both traditional economic models and emerging behavioral/market signals.
• Provide tailored outlooks for customer partners, articulating scenario-based guidance and strategic implications for their business and the beverage category. Present findings, forecasts, and strategic recommendations to senior management, boards of directors, franchisees, and industry organizations.

Consulting-Style Partner Engagement

• Serve as the primary advisor to FSOP’s leadership, framing economic issues, trends, and opportunities to support strategic planning and execution.
• Work closely with NAOU Strategy, Human Insights, Finance, Consumer & Channel Strategy, and Customer Strategic Insights to shape customer-specific perspectives that elevate Coca‑Cola’s role as thought leaders.
• Support senior customer conversations with differentiated strategic insight and future-forward storytelling.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in Economics, Strategy, Business, Behavioral Science, Statistics, Business Analytics, or a related field. Ph.D preferred.
• 15+ years in economic analysis, strategic foresight, consulting, or market insights roles, ideally within Foodservice, CPG, or a global business environment.
• Strong background in macroeconomics with substantial experience in forecasting and analyzing national and global economic trends and linking output to strategic corporate and business decision-making.
• Proven track record of developing forecasting models and delivering actionable economic insights at an executive level.
• Strong forecasting experience and comfort working with both quantitative and qualitative data.
• Exceptional storytelling skills with the ability to present complex concepts in simple, compelling narratives. Notably, the ability to translate complex economic concepts into clear messages.
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders and explain complex concepts to non-experts.
• Proven ability to influence senior executives—internally and externally.
• High proficiency in statistical software (e.g., R, SAS, STATA, Python) and data visualization tools.
• Comfort with ambiguity, a fast-paced environment, and evolving business priorities.