Head of Restaurant Excellence

As the Head of Restaurant Excellence, you will play a pivotal role in defining and driving operational strategies for KFC Africa. Your primary focus will be on enhancing the customer experience, digitizing restaurant operations, and implementing innovative solutions to drive business growth. You will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, franchisees, and senior stakeholders to align on operational success. This role requires a strong understanding of digital operations, customer experience management, and restaurant innovation, with a proven track record in the QSR, retail, or manufacturing industry.

• Define and lead the Customer Experience strategy, targeting 90%+ customer satisfaction across all channels.
• Lead the Experience Management forum, aligning franchise and employee experience to deliver the Elevated Experience Management pillar.
• Own the end-to-end guest recovery and complaints management framework, ensuring brand reputation protection.
• Drive the digitization of Standard Operating Procedures, workflows, and in-restaurant systems to enhance efficiency.
• Oversee the adoption of digital tools across equity and franchise markets, ensuring operational readiness.
• Provide final operational sign-off for the deployment of digital initiatives, balancing customer experience and cost.
• Operationalize the marketing calendar, ensuring all promotional activities are simple, executable, and scalable.
• Drive excellence in restaurant execution, enforcing operational guardrails for consistent, high-quality performance.
• Lead the testing, validation, and scaling of new restaurant tools and technologies, enhancing employee and customer experience.
• Manage and develop a high-performing REX team, fostering a culture of continuous learning and innovation.
• Minimum 6-8 years of experience in Digital Operations within the QSR, Retail, or Manufacturing industry.
• Bachelor's degree in Business, Technology, Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of senior-level operations experience, preferably in QSR, food manufacturing, or retail.
• Strong proficiency in PowerBI, MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook.
• Excellent management skills, including planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
• Proven ability to influence, collaborate, and communicate effectively with cross-functional teams.
• Capability to develop strategies, think strategically, and identify and mitigate risks.
• Experience in restaurant technology, NPD, operations, food safety, and vendor/SLA governance is an advantage.
• Strong negotiation and interpersonal skills, with the ability to formulate and analyze data.
• A high work ethic aligned with the company's values and a passion for operational excellence.