Diageo
Global premium spirits and beer producer
Media Lead - Global Travel
About the job
- At least 8 years of experience in media planning, activation, digital marketing, or media agency leadership, with experience across multiple markets.
- Experience managing significant media investments and delivering measurable improvements in media effectiveness, return on investment, and business performance.
- Proven success driving media transformation through digital innovation, automation, artificial intelligence-enabled solutions, and cross-functional collaboration.
- Experience operating within complex, matrixed, multi-market environments with varying levels of media maturity.
- Demonstrated ability to lead and challenge agencies and partners to deliver high-performance outcomes.
- Deep expertise across paid media, programmatic, social, search, and video, with strong working knowledge of retail media ecosystems.
- Strong understanding of media effectiveness, audience strategy, measurement frameworks, and data-driven decision-making.
- Knowledge of artificial intelligence-enabled media capabilities, media technology platforms, and evolving digital ecosystems.
- Strong grounding in brand safety, data privacy, and responsible marketing practices.
- Ability to translate global and regional priorities into actionable, growth-driving plans.
- Ability to align senior leaders around media investment and transformation agendas.
- Ability to lead through complexity while balancing standardisation with flexibility across markets.
- Own the development and deployment of integrated media plans across paid media, retail media, social, and creator channels, aligned with global category strategy, the media blueprint, and Global Travel growth ambitions.
- Lead cross-market alignment on Connected, Scaled Reach execution, ensuring consistency while enabling flexibility for local market dynamics.
- Translate global media frameworks and category priorities into actionable, data-driven plans that deliver measurable business outcomes.
- Oversee execution of integrated full-funnel media plans and optimise investment to maximise reach, effectiveness, and return on investment.
- Drive media efficiency and productivity through strategic investment allocation, optimisation frameworks, and adoption of DMAF global standards and tools.
- Monitor and actively optimise regional media performance against defined key performance indicators, delivering short-term results and long-term brand growth.
- Accelerate adoption of data-driven audience strategies to improve targeting precision and business impact.
- Drive implementation and scaling of artificial intelligence-enabled planning, buying, and optimisation solutions to improve productivity and real-time performance.
- Lead a test-and-learn agenda for Global Travel, embedding structured experimentation to improve media effectiveness and inform future investment decisions.
- Ensure retail media campaigns follow the Retail Media Activation Framework and are integrated within broader media plans.
- Ensure compliance with the Diageo Marketing Code, Trusted Marketplace, data privacy, and brand safety standards through adherence to Diageo media standards.
- Identify and manage risks related to media investment, data usage, and platform integrity.
- Lead and influence cross-functional stakeholders, in-market teams, global teams, and agency partners to deliver high-performance media outcomes.
- Ensure Connected Reach plans are integrated within broader go-to-market strategies while balancing global consistency with local relevance.
- Challenge and elevate agency and partner performance to deliver innovation, efficiency, and effectiveness.
- Collaborate with the Scaled Reach team and wider regional hub to deliver competitive advantage for the category.
- Deliver media’s contribution to category growth, including revenue uplift, return on investment improvement, media efficiency, and share-of-market gains.
- Experience with Travel Retail.
About the company
Diageo is a global leader in premium drinks, with a portfolio of more than 200 brands across spirits and beer that are sold in about 180 countries. Its products are alcoholic beverages from centuries-old names to new brands, distributed worldwide to reach a diverse consumer base. The company manages a wide range of brands rather than focusing on a single product, and it uses its scale, global presence, and portfolio breadth to reach customers wherever they are. Diageo differentiates itself through its large, diverse brand mix, its international reach, and its ongoing focus on shaping the future of the business while considering its social and environmental impact. The company's goal is to raise the bar for people and the planet by investing in the future and acting with responsibility toward communities and the environment.
Company Size
10,001+
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
London, United Kingdom
Founded
1997
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Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Europe, LAC, and Africa grew in fiscal 2026, offsetting U.S. weakness.
- Diageo expects c.$1 billion annual savings from its 2026 restructuring.
- Guinness demand stays strong; fiscal 2026 Europe sales rose 3.4%.
What critics are saying
- North America organic sales fell 8.4% in FY2026; recovery runs through 2028.
- Greater China sales dropped 34.9% in FY2026, crushing Diageo's Asia Pacific growth.
- The August 2026 restructuring cuts staff and costs; execution misses threaten leverage.
What makes Diageo unique
- Guinness, Johnnie Walker, and Tanqueray give Diageo unmatched global premium brand breadth.
- Dave Lewis launched an August 2026 restructuring to reset North America competitiveness.
- Ritual Zero Proof and RTD launches extend Diageo beyond classic spirits.
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Benefits
Flexible Work Hours
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↑ 7%1 year growth
↑ 7%2 year growth
↑ 7%Jim Cramer has shifted his stance on the alcoholic beverage sector, showing cautious optimism for Constellation Brands whilst remaining bearish on Diageo. He highlighted Constellation's new CEO, Ned Fink, as a potential catalyst for growth, noting Fink's successful track record at Jim Beam. Diageo faces multiple headwinds, including a 34.9% sales decline in China and an 8.4% drop in North American net sales. The stock has fallen 52% over five years. Constellation grew beer sales 2% to $2.28 billion in fiscal Q1, beating earnings expectations. However, beer depletion fell 0.3%, whilst wine and spirit sales dropped 10%. Hedge funds appear to favour Constellation, with 56 funds holding stakes versus 35 for Diageo. However, Diageo trades at a higher forward P/E ratio of 14.41 compared to Constellation's 11.36.
Diageo and Brown-Forman represent contrasting strategies in the spirits industry, with Diageo offering global diversification and Brown-Forman focusing on American whiskey brands. Diageo operates over 200 brands including Johnnie Walker and Guinness across 180 countries. In FY 2025, revenue reached $20.2 billion with net income of $2.4 billion, though net margin declined to 11.6% from 19.1% the prior year. The company maintains a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.2x and free cash flow of $2.7 billion. Brown-Forman, producing Jack Daniel's and Woodford Reserve across 170 markets, generated $4.0 billion revenue in FY 2025, down 4.9% year-over-year. Net income was $869 million with a 21.9% net margin. The company shows stronger financial metrics with a 0.7x debt-to-equity ratio, 3.9x current ratio and free cash flow of $431 million.
Diageo's increased investment in Sober highlights the growing demand for premium non-alcoholic beverages in India's evolving market.
Major spirits companies are grappling with a $22 billion inventory glut, the largest in a decade, according to the Financial Times. Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Campari, Brown-Forman and Remy Cointreau are sitting on unprecedented amounts of unsold aged spirits, including whisky, Cognac, tequila and rum. The surplus stems from pandemic-era over-production when home consumption surged. However, consumer demand has since declined due to health concerns and shifts towards THC beverages. Companies have responded by pausing production at distilleries, reducing workforces and closing facilities. Cognac faces particularly severe challenges, with slowing exports and trade issues with China forcing price cuts. Even tequila, which recently outsold American whiskey in the US, is experiencing slowdown. Industry analysts warn that production cuts risk future shortages if demand rebounds unexpectedly.
Diageo North America has acquired Ritual Zero Proof Non-Alcoholic Spirits, the leading non-alc spirit brand in the U.S. since its 2019 launch. This move aligns with Diageo’s Growth Ambition for sustainable growth. Ritual offers non-alc alternatives to whiskey, tequila, gin, rum, and aperitif. The U.S. non-alc category has grown +31% CAGR over five years, with non-alc spirits as the fastest-growing segment. Diageo is the top non-alc spirits player globally, holding leading market shares in major markets.