the ideal candidate:
- Has 5+ years in FMCG marketing, with strong exposure to European markets and experience across trade/shopper marketing and brand activation
- Demonstrates strong commercial and financial acumen, with proven experience managing budgets, P&Ls, and delivering ROI-driven marketing plans
- Has built and executed multi-market strategies, including market entry and expansion plans
- Is highly analytical and data-driven, with strong Excel skills and experience leveraging consumer, shopper and category data to drive decisions
- Has experience leading through the line marketing and managing agencies doing so.
- Is an ambitious and proactive self-starter with a strong ownership mindset
- Has excellent communication and presentation skills, comfortable influencing senior stakeholders and external partners
- Is highly organised, able to manage complexity across multiple markets and priorities
- Has line management experience
- Is passionate about itsu, our brand, and our ambition to grow internationally
about us:
itsu is the healthy eating, Asian inspired quick service retail & grocery brand with over 70 stores in the UK and a leading grocery business across Europe and beyond. Renowned for its best-in-class food made fresh in each shop every day, itsu has huge global ambitions with a commitment to continue to open many more stores and intensify the growth of its already thriving grocery arm. With its best-in-class healthy food, latest technology, innovation, and talented workforce, itsu is the future of fast food.
itsu [grocery], which this role falls under, takes the itsu brand into supermarkets, health food stores, online, wholesale and internationally with products such as crispy seaweed thins, frozen gyoza & soup’dumplings, brilliant’broth, rice’noodles & miso’easy to name a few…
D&I statement:
itsu [grocery] is committed to building a diverse, equitable and inclusive organisation. We encourage applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply for all of our opportunities.
When applying for a role with us, please remove your: full name, name of University/School, address, email address and any photos of you on your CV and covering letter. non-anonymised CVs may not be reviewed.
the role:
This is a strategic role, responsible for building and executing international marketing strategies across new and existing markets. [All in Europe]
You will lead the development of market entry plans, growth strategies, and activation roadmaps, ensuring best-in-class execution across trade marketing, OOH, and consumer channels.
You will manage budgets, lead a growing team, and work closely with commercial teams, distributors, and retailers to accelerate itsu’s international expansion.
responsibilities:
- Collaborate closely with the itsu[grocery] Brand, Marketing, and international teams to oversea and/or manage multi-channel brand strategies and communications calendars across key markets, including:
- Defining brand and product-level growth strategies
- Allocating investment in line with strategic priorities
- Leveraging data, research, and insights to build robust business cases and secure stakeholder alignment
- Develop tailored market entry and expansion strategies, grounded in local consumer, retailer, and category dynamics
- Oversea commercial sell-in and strategic discussions with insight-led, compelling marketing plans
- With your team, Monitor, analyse, and report on the performance of brand investments and marketing campaigns:
- Lead comprehensive post-campaign analysis
- Evaluate the effectiveness of marketing spend and refine long-term brand strategies accordingly
- Conduct quarterly performance reviews with senior stakeholders, providing clear updates and actionable recommendations
- Oversea and maintain strong relationships with key agency partners (media, digital, and creative), ensuring high-quality delivery, effective performance management, and cost control
- Line manage and develop the international marketing team [currently one direct report], fostering capability building, accountability, and high performance
what we offer:
- competitive salary
- competitive bonus scheme
- 25 days holiday + bank holidays (2 bank holidays are interchangeable for other religious holidays)
- health insurance
- company pension scheme
- hybrid working (2 days wfh)
- opportunity to work from home abroad
- 50% employee discount in itsu shops
- free itsu lunch
- discounts at major retailers
- a sizeable training budget to support your ongoing development