Twinings is a long-established tea and beverage company serving consumers through a broad range of black, green, herbal, speciality, and wellbeing teas. Its products include teabags, loose-leaf teas, hot chocolate, malt drinks, and curated gift collections, supported by online shopping, tea guides, masterclasses, and seasonal gifting. Operating across food and beverage, retail, and marketing, Twinings combines careful sourcing with a focus on quality and distinctive tea experiences.
Commercial Director – Twinings, Hong Kong and Macau (Hybrid)
Lead Twinings and Ovaltine’s Hong Kong and Macau FMCG business, with responsibility for strategy, P&L, distributor partnerships, growth, brands, and team leadership.
Description
- Own the Hong Kong and Macau business strategy and full P&L, covering sales, gross margin, marketing investment, trade spend, overheads, working capital, cash, and profit delivery.
- Develop and execute the five-year growth strategy and annual operating plan for Twinings and Ovaltine.
- Set strategic priorities across brands, channels, customers, and investment while balancing immediate performance with long-term brand equity and sustainable value.
- Use market, channel, customer, and financial data to manage performance, identify opportunities, anticipate risks, and implement corrective action.
- Set priorities for pricing, revenue growth management, portfolio development, innovation, and investment to strengthen mix, margin, ROI, and competitive position.
- Manage the distributor relationship at executive level, including joint business planning, performance governance, annual negotiations, resource alignment, and execution accountability.
- Review and approve major distributor proposals covering customers, promotions, distribution, visibility, inventory, forecasting, trade terms, and brand-building activity.
- Govern A&P and trade investment through prioritisation, tracking, post-evaluation, and reallocation.
- Drive growth across Hong Kong and Macau FMCG channels, including supermarkets, convenience, e-commerce, traditional trade, specialty retail, foodservice, and HORECA.
- Create the innovation pipeline and commercialisation agenda with Greater China, regional, and global brand teams and supply partners.
- Lead demand planning and business risk management with finance and supply chain, focusing on forecast accuracy, inventory health, service, compliance, and continuity.
- Represent Hong Kong and Macau in senior regional and global forums, delivering board-ready business reviews and strategic recommendations.
- Lead, coach, and develop the local team to build accountability, commercial capability, high performance, and cross-functional collaboration.
- Maintain high standards of governance, ethics, regulatory compliance, brand stewardship, and responsible decision-making.
Requirements
- At least 15 years of progressive FMCG leadership experience, including substantial hands-on experience in Hong Kong’s food and beverage market; Macau experience is advantageous.
- Experience as a Commercial Director, Business Unit Director, Marketing Director, or equivalent senior leader with broad market responsibility.
- A track record of owning a full P&L and delivering profitable growth, transformation, or turnaround in complex market conditions.
- Strong strategic capability, demonstrated through multi-year strategy development, portfolio and investment decisions, and measurable execution.
- Advanced business and financial acumen across sales, gross margin, pricing, trade spend, A&P, overheads, working capital, forecasting, P&L, and ROI.
- Extensive knowledge of Hong Kong and Macau FMCG customers, channels, and route-to-market models, including executive-level distributor management.
- Strong brand-building and consumer focus, with sound judgement across positioning, communications, innovation, packaging, pricing, and promotion beyond financial measures alone.
- Ability to lead cross-functional teams and influence senior regional and global stakeholders within a matrixed multinational organisation.
- Excellent communication, negotiation, and executive storytelling skills, including presenting polished, board-ready recommendations from complex data.
- Fluency in spoken and written English and Putonghua, plus fluent Cantonese; proficiency in simplified and traditional Chinese.
- Bachelor’s degree or higher in business, marketing, finance, or a related field.
- Highly autonomous, resilient, and hands-on, with the maturity to serve as the senior company representative in a lean market organisation.