Head of Sales & Marketing

Sales & Marketing Manager

Guinness Open Gate Brewery London

Location: Covent Garden, London

Full time, FTC/ Secondment until September, 2025

Closing Date: March 27, 2025

About Us

The Guinness Open Gate Brewery, London is a new Guinness neighbourhood in London that will inspire the best in brewing, food, retail and culture. Consisting of 52,000 square feet of heritage buildings and central courtyard in the historic brewing quarter in Covent Garden, OBY will become a key growth driver for Guinness, placing the brand in culture, driving relevancy and brand saliency amongst a new generation of drinkers. GB is the biggest Guinness market globally and Guinness is enjoying a period of exceptional growth and cultural magnetism, with the brand growing by around 50% since 2019 to the biggest it has ever been in value, volume and market share in the brand's 264-year history.

This role is part of the OBY Leadership Team. The role holder will be responsible for setting and implementing the sales, marketing and digital strategy of a multi-million pound business, and building a progressive digital pathway to deliver this. The successful applicant will be a key influencer within the leadership team and with internal and external collaborators alike. You will work very closely with the Diageo GB marketing and finance teams to ensure that marketing campaigns and sales activity are closely aligned to deliver quality sales and brand saliency.

About the Role

This role will craft and ignite OBY commercial growth strategy and help lead the future development of the business. The role requires a deep understanding of how to drive footfall into visitor experiences and food and beverage venues. This person will have a strong ability to drive quality growth, help build world class experiences, understand the digital landscape and have a strong creative and innovative flair. They will also possess sound commercial judgement, outstanding leadership and marketing skills, and have a ruthless focus on world class execution.

The type of person we are looking for is bursting with energy and drive. The person will be an inspiring leader, creator, an individual that inspires contagious passion, and gets things done. The person will be a winner by nature and expect the same from the people around you.

You will be passionate about a digital first approach and the role technology can play in brand and visitor experiences. You will understand and embrace technology that enables us to be world class. You will be accountable for creating a strong commercial organisation and implementing the marketing programs necessary to step-change profitability and growth creation.

Location

Key elements of the site include:

• Iconic Guinness Gates as main entrance to the experience, offering huge cultural impact in the heart of London.
• Restaurants/Taproom/bars - world class food and beer produced and served on site.
• Central all weather historic courtyard with world class bar experience.
• Retail spaces, one of which will stock items produced through exciting short-term brand collaborations.
• Bespoke 5th floor glass box rooftop eating and drinking experience creating brand new rooftop view of London.
• Brewery and beer experience/tasting tours.
• Cultural events space designed and fitted out with technology to enable world class meeting and conference experiences

You will be responsible for:

• Achieve targets in customer acquisition, yield/occupancy management, sales, revenue, and profit targets
• Work closely with the Diageo GB teams to agree OBY contribution to GB Annual Operating Plan
• Lead ATL/through-the-line campaigns and ensure effective execution by working with external agencies, internal cross-function partners, and our OBY F&B operating partner
• Analyse the performance and value of marketing plans, campaigns, new product launches, brand activations and seasonal promotions
• Develop an end-to-end digital strategy to meet commercial targets and deliver on Guinness Brand objectives. Take full ownership of the OBY website to ensure that it meets clearly defined performance metrics.
• Lead the Data and CRM strategies and plans for OBY to ensure that the business both collects high quality, opted in data, and designs CRM campaigns to drive repeat visits or repeat retail spend
• Develop a programme of annual events that lead to cut through in culture and communion in a way that OGCD (Only Guinness Can Do) and that support the local community
• Work closely with the Marketing/Brand, Innovation, Retail and Finance teams to develop products and experiences that grow quality sales and support brand saliency

Key Stakeholders

The role reports into the Managing Director, GOGBL, and is part of the GOGBL Leadership Team. The role holder will need to build a relationship and work closely with relevant colleagues responsible for the growth strategy in Guinness and the wider Diageo GB team.

Qualifications and Experience Required

• Eight years plus in a marketing or sales leadership position with an FMCG company, international visitor attraction, large scale event management company, travel, hospitality brand or specialty retailer. International experience would be an advantage.
• Track record of achieving operational metrics yield/occupancy management, sales, revenue and profit targets.
• Proven ability to develop sales and growth plans across multiple platforms, including digital, and to develop yield and pricing strategies to optimise revenue.
• Proven track record in building strategic marketing plans that have influenced a major market, visitor attraction or retailer.
• Experience and understanding of implementing end to end digital strategy including D2C e-commerce with proven commercial and brand advocacy results.
• Ability to navigate and understand the end-to-end digital landscape, world class website development, SEO and experience of working with CRM systems.
• Previous experience developing and maintaining commercial partnerships and ecosystems within the FMCG, event, retail or hospitality sector.
• Experience of leading successful teams. Strong interpersonal and communication skills to lead the team toward achieving stretching goals.
• Ability to ensure the right data and analytic infrastructure is in place and to use data to organise and interpret campaign results.
• Experience of transformational change in a consumer facing environment.

Working with Us

Flexibility is key to success in our business and many of our people work flexibly in many different ways, including part-time, compressed hours, flexible location. Please talk to us about what flexibility means to you and don't let anything stop you from applying.

• We offer a highly competitive rewards and benefits package including:Contemporary work life balance policies and wellbeing activities
• Annual merit increases (performance based)
• Annual bonus (performance based)
• Subsidized gym membership
• Contributary pension scheme
• Share options

Our purpose is to celebrate life, every day, everywhere. And creating an inclusive culture, where everyone feels valued and listened to, is a crucial part of this.

We believe the most diverse and inclusive culture makes for a better business and a better world.

We know that for our business to thrive and for Diageo to realise its ambition, we depend on having diverse talent with a range of backgrounds, skills and capabilities in each of the countries in which we operate and to reflect our broad consumer base.

Around the world we have a number of inclusive Business and Employee Resource Groups known as BRGs and ERGs. These influential groups, made up of our people, represent variousviewpoints, experiences andcommunities who generate thought-provokingworkto enhance ourbusiness and workplace, creating a sense of belonging and opportunities for all.

Join us, and you'll be part of an organisation that embraces diversity in the broadest possible sense. This means that you'll be welcomed and celebrated for who you are just by being you. You'll be part of - and help build - an inclusive culture that celebrates people of different gender, ethnicity, ability, age, sexual orientation, social class, educational backgrounds, experiences, mindsets, and more. And you'll help us champion inclusion and diversity across our entire business: with our employees, our suppliers, across our brands, and within the communities in which we operate.