Operations Innovation Lead

**WELCOME TO KFC AND YUM**

**WHO ARE KFC?**

Colonel Harland Sanders opened the first KFC in Corbin, Kentucky in 1938. He started with one store, 11 herbs and spices, and an idea. From there our incredible brand and product grew to what it is today.

KFC first came to the UK in 1965 with our first restaurant in Preston, Lancashire. Today we are a billion-pound business with over 900 restaurants run by our 28,000 restaurant team members. Our headquarters are based at the Restaurant Support Centre (RSC) in Woking, Surrey - a 24-minute train from Waterloo. Of the c.900 restaurants in the UK, 900 of our restaurants are owned and operated by 40 franchise partners; the remaining 50 are company owned and run.

We are proud to have received a number of accolades in recognition of our commitment to our employees, including being named as Britain’s Top Employer three years running. To work for KFC is to be part of one big family.

**WHO ARE ‘YUM’?**

KFC is one of the 3 brands operated by our parent company Yum along with Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. We are the world’s largest restaurant group with over 40,000 restaurants across the globe.

Yum isn’t your average Fortune 250 company. We like to do things a little differently. From our world-famous culture of fun and recognition to our focus on your career potential.

**OUR CULTURE**

BREAKTHROUGH RESULTS, TEAMWORK AND RECOGNITION

We believe that our success is driven by the power of our employees working in unison with a shared set of common goals and values. We are very proud that KFC UKI is recognised as a key market not only in terms of profit and innovation but also for the talent we grow and develop for Yum.

We invest heavily in our people and helping them drive their personal development. As part of this we give each of our managers in the business the opportunity to go through Heartstyles. Heartstyles is a tool and strategy to measure and manage culture, building people’s self-awareness and helping them to transform their behaviours. This tool can then be used in coaching conversations you have with your team and line manager and to help build effective individual development plans.

We celebrate success every day and to us recognition is much more than just saying thank you
- it is about really celebrating achievements, milestones and behaviours. One of the ways we do this is through our own personal recognition awards.

As a company we take our corporate social responsibility very seriously and encourage our employees to ‘give something back’ through companywide charity efforts.

As an equal opportunity employer, we embrace individuality and diversity. We employ irrespective of background, age, ethnicity, colour, gender, disability, sexual or religious orientation and marital status.

**MORE ABOUT THE ROLE**

The role of Operations Innovation Leader is to re-define and re-engineer the restaurant assets and guest and team member experience of the future for the KFC UKI business and, in doing so, increase same-store sales growth. The role holder will work to ensure that the restaurant experience of the future is ever easier, more relevant and more distinctive - both for guests and team members. This challenge will be a mix of project management, operational acumen, innovation mindset and financial/negotiation strategy.

As well as working with UK-based colleagues in the Operations, Technology and Marketing teams to land the KFC UKI strategic objectives, as KFC UKI is leading the Western European restaurant operating agenda, the role holder will also be expected to deliver against these broader strategic objectives by making the restaurant of the future simpler and more digital. S/he will therefore be expected to hit the ground running, partner effectively with the KFC Global team in Dallas and externally with franchisees. Reporting to Luke Jackson, Head of Central Operations KFC UKI, the role holder will be the right-hand key person to manage restaurant innovation projects and push them to fruition; they will also have the opportunity to directly coach exciting talent in their current role.

In this quick, informal, fun, unbureaucratic and truly digital organisation, surrounded by an amazing calibre of people you will have the opportunity to make an extraordinary impact quickly.

**WHAT YOU’LL DO**:
As Innovation Operations Leader, you will:

- Project-manage the restaurant innovation agenda - innovation and transformational change to work alongside the “Kitchen of the future” team for the brand across all KFC UKI’s 950+ restaurants.
- Be a major thought leader on value creation through innovation (tech, digital, robotics) in restaurant and proactively bring forward proposals
- Lay the foundations for the growth of the brand over the next 10+ years by looking at enhancing (or implementing new) sales channels (e.g. Mobile Ordering, Table Service, etc.)
- Be relentless on prioritisation and governance - you will be the guardian of pro