Corporate Relations Manager, Spain and Southern Spain

Corporate Relations Manager, Spain and Southern

Are you an individual with a strive to be the best? A brilliant partner who can influence, lead innovation & transformation across our Brands and Global Packaging footprint, then we have a great opportunity for you.

About us

Diageo is the world’s leading premium drinks company with an outstanding collection of brands, such as Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Baileys, Captain Morgan, Tanqueray and Guinness. Our purpose – Celebrating life, every day, everywhere – has a relevant role in our company, for our people, our diversity, our brands, in how we perform and how we build shared value. There’s a rich history of character and iconic products to promote. And we rely on driven, hard-working commercial executives to protect the legacy of these brands and ensure their future success.

About the role

Role Dimensions

The Corporate Relations (CR) team’s role is to protect and promote Diageo’s reputation and licence to operate, in service of becoming the most trusted and respected consumer goods company. This role works alongside the Europe Regional CR Team, the market GM, and other internal stakeholders on all pillars of CR activity across Spain and Portugal. This will include:

• Operationalizing and driving the Europe CR Strategy, both as a sophisticated operating environment and as part of the Southern Europe market
• Support across the 3 CR pillars (Government, Society and Communications), working flexibly to support Diageo businesses in Spain and Southern Europe.
• Co-create and deliver the corporate comms & policy engagement programme for Spain and Portugal, while presenting the Managing Director, Southern Europe, and the Southern European Exec leaders with engagement opportunities. This includes representing Diageo on industry fora, internal and external events.
• Acting as company spokesperson across Spain and member of the crisis management team.

Stakeholders:

• Internal – CR colleagues in other countries, the above market CR team, the MD of Southern Europe and their Exec team, members of the global brand teams
• External – Industry, media, and government. Customers (retailers, wholesalers, on-trade operators).

Top Accountabilities

Functional:

• The role will handle relationships and reputation with Government, identifying and campaigning on opportunities & risks across the geography including tax and regulation.
• The role will oversee corporate and internal communications works in Spain and Southern Europe.
• The role will run communication agencies, public affairs consultancies and other external vendors.
• The role will need to develop an excellent knowledge and understanding of Spain & Southern Europe including their business strategy and goals, brands, innovations, policies, channels and practices.
• The role has a Spain + Southern Europe remit requiring interaction with a range of functions and countries - the role will collaborate and respond directly to specific project needs.
• The role will manage relationships with Trade Associations and ensure that the TA strategy is aligned and complementary to Diageo’s.
• The role will lead on Diageo’s 2030 Society ambition, rolling out the global framework and targets.
• The role will work closely with the rest of the Southern Europe CR Team on internal and external communications for the geography, delivering against our reputation pillar and supporting the MD.

Leadership:

Win through Execution

• Sets and pursues direction without guidance and takes a wide view of their accountabilities.
• High energy and ambition to achieve successful outcomes and high standards.
• Balances analysis and execution and adjusts thinking in the face of new information.
• Actively spots opportunities or issues and identifies which are urgent and important.
• Generates a range of workable solutions, decides what should be done and takes action.

Shape the Future

• Sees the big picture and possibility from multiple angles and through a creative lens.
• Frames issues in a way that creates clarity and incorporates others' best thinking.
• Accurately digests large amounts of information and breaks down complex problems thoroughly.
• Challenges themselves and others to take on new or unfamiliar tasks and ways of working.

Inspire through Purpose

• Finds broader meaning in their work and aspires to make a significant difference.
• Reads their environment and understands how culture and context influences people's perspectives.
• Is actively aware of the impact they have on others and tunes in to the needs of individuals around them.
• Communicates in a compelling, persuasive, and impactful way.
• Draws on a variety of influencing styles to engage different audiences.

Invest in Talent

• Displays confidence in their ability to meet challenges and succeed.
• Maintains belief and optimism and bounces back quickly from setbacks or failures.
• Demonstrates a realistic and thoughtful awareness of their own capabilities.
• Proactively seeks feedback and development for growth and takes action.

About you

Ideal experiences / Qualifications / capabilities

• 5+ years of relevant Corporate Relations/ Corporate Affairs internal department of an FMCG company, government body, or corporate affairs consultancy.
• Experience in building public affairs and corporate communications plans, both at strategic and operational levels.
• Experience in leading PR agencies, Public Affairs consultants, and other external partners.
• Experience in crisis communications.
• Outstanding writing and presentation skills in Spanish and English. Ability to deliver high-impact written materials. Excellent verbal communication skills.
• A track record of creating, developing, and completing corporate communications and public policy objectives, with strong core functional standards and skills.
• Detailed understanding of the Spanish political, media and trade association landscape and its main collaborators. Familiarity with the landscape of other Southern European countries is a plus.
• Experience working across multiple countries/geographies/cultures.
• Languages: Native-level Spanish and full proficiency in English (both spoken and written) are required. Other Southern European languages (Portuguese, French, Italian or Greek) would be a plus.
• Deep personal accountability for great performance
• Exceptional ability to build and maintain genuine relationships based on mutual trust & respect.
• Handling complexity. Demonstrated track record of effectively leading a daring agenda of multiple projects and partners.
• Being able to excel when dealing with ambiguity, complexity and working within a fast-paced, entrepreneurial, and matrixed environment.
• Successful management of senior team members at all levels, resulting in strong and positive outcomes. Able to build strong relationships with broad spectrum of seniorities and align collaborators through from idea to implementation.
• Consistent record to work collaboratively with colleagues at different levels and the capability and confidence to provide direction, coaching and support to others.
• Commercial delivery. Good understanding of Diageo’s commercial drivers, industry value chain, and alcohol & health landscape. Ability to search, extract, analyse and present data and insights.

Working with us

Flexibility

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

Diversity statement

Celebrating our inclusive and diverse culture is core to Diageo’s purpose of “celebrating life every day everywhere”. This purpose is, in itself, inclusive in nature, as it values everybody irrespective of background, disability, religion, gender identity, sexuality or ethnicity.

We know that for our business to thrive and for Diageo to realize its ambition, we depend on having diverse talent with a range of backgrounds, skills and capabilities in each of the 180 countries in which we operate and to reflect our broad consumer base. We view diversity as one of the key enablers that helps our business to grow and our values, purpose and standards set the conditions for us to respect the unique contribution each person brings.