We are Kao, listed as one of the world’s most ethical companies for the last 20 years.
Our EMEA brand portfolio spans across three sectors; Consumer Care (John Frieda, Guhl, Bondi Sands, Bioré, Jergens, Curél), Professional Hair (Goldwell, Oribe, KMS Hair, Kerasilk), and Molton Brown.
Our corporate philosophy, The Kao Way, guides us in everything we do – acting with integrity, courageously driving innovation, and treating each other with trust and respect.
About our role:
Reporting to the Head of Strategic Partnerships & Investment Optimization, AEMEA, this role leads the platform partnerships mini squad to build stronger, more valuable relationships with global platform owners (including Meta, Google, ByteDance, and Amazon). The role defines the AEMEA partnership strategy, negotiates priorities and support, ensures programs scale across markets, and demonstrates measurable impact for Kao brands through disciplined planning, execution, and evaluation.
What you will do:
- Define AEMEA platform partnership strategy, priorities, and governance; align to brand missions and market needs.
- Lead senior partner engagement: negotiate joint plans, support models, innovation access, and success measures.
- Ensure scalable enablement across markets: capability programs, playbooks, and adoption tracking.
- Drive innovation portfolio: select high-value pilots, ensure disciplined evaluation, and scale what works.
- Stakeholder alignment across legal, procurement, data, and brand teams; remove blockers and accelerate delivery.
- Executive reporting: communicate outcomes, risks, and next-step investments with clear business rationale.
What you will need:
- University level education
- Advanced experience in partner strategy, media leadership, commerce, or consulting preferred
- Minimum 10 years of experience in platform partnerships, digital media leadership, electronic commerce, or agency leadership
- 5+ years influencing regional stakeholders and shaping multi-market programmes
- Experience negotiating support, resources, and strategic value with senior partner teams
- Demonstrates strong strategic partner leadership, negotiation, and cross-company collaboration skills, with the ability to build trusted relationships across internal and external stakeholders, including close collaboration with regional/global headquarters and teams in Japan.
- Deep understanding of digital media and commerce ecosystems, with the ability to identify partnership opportunities, create clear value cases, and align partners and stakeholders to measurable business outcomes.
- Strong innovation mindset balanced with disciplined measurement, governance, and commercial thinking to ensure initiatives deliver sustainable business value and operational excellence.
- Excellent executive communication and influencing skills, with the confidence and professionalism to represent Kao effectively with senior internal and external stakeholders.
- Proven capability in governance design, programme management, prioritisation, and operating rhythm leadership, with the ability to drive alignment, decision-making, and execution in complex and fast-paced environments.
- Calm, resilient, and adaptable under pressure, with a structured and solutions-oriented approach to navigating ambiguity and competing priorities.
- Strong people leadership and coaching mindset, fostering collaboration, capability development, accountability, and continuous improvement across teams and partners.
At Kao, we believe the diversity of our teams strengthens our global mission. Here we trust and respect each other, collaborating in a friendly and inclusive work environment to achieve great results.
What you can expect from us:
- An entrepreneurial environment where passionate and innovative teams come together.
- Respect, teamwork and collaboration are at the heart of how we work.
- A workplace culture that prioritises employee wellbeing, with opportunities to get involved in initiatives such as Mental Health First Aiders, our Charity Committee, and DE&I communities
- A broad range of benefits, including flexible working, competitive salaries, health and wellbeing offers, pension schemes, insurance options, and more…
- Learning and development opportunities
Your voice matters here, we value entrepreneurial thinking and innovation from our teams.
To find out why 33,000 people across the Globe work at Kao please visit:
https://candidate-brochure.kao.com/kao-emea/full-view.html
https://www.kao.com/emea/en/careers/
Discover careers at Kao and how we live our purpose, Kirei – Making Life Beautiful.
https://kao.voyse.io/
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