Head, Retail Media Ad Ops and Solutions

Company Description

foodpanda is part of the Delivery Hero Group, the world’s pioneering local delivery platform, our mission is to deliver an amazing experience—fast, easy, and to your door. We operate in around 65 countries worldwide. Headquartered in Berlin, Germany. Delivery Hero has been listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange since 2017 and is part of the MDAX stock market index.

Job Description

We are looking for a Head of Retail Media Ad Operations & Solutions to lead and scale the operational and solutions capabilities behind our Retail Media business across 3 brands including foodpanda, foodora and Yemeksepeti.

This role sits at the intersection of commercial, operations, product and strategy, ensuring that our advertising solutions can be sold, activated, measured and scaled effectively across markets.

You will own the regional Ad Operations framework, defining the standards, processes, tools and governance required to deliver high-quality campaigns at scale. At the same time, you will act as a senior solutions partner to our commercial teams, helping translate advertiser needs into executable media solutions and working with Product and Tech to continuously improve our advertising capabilities.

This is a highly cross-functional leadership role for someone who combines deep advertising operations expertise, strong technical understanding and commercial judgment, and who can turn complexity into scalable solutions.

What’s on the Menu – Major Responsibilities

Lead Regional Ad Operations

• Own the regional Ad Operations strategy and operating model across our Retail Media business, establishing clear standards for campaign setup, trafficking, activation, optimization, measurement and reporting.

• Define processes, SLAs, quality standards and governance to ensure consistent and reliable campaign delivery across markets.

• Establish best practices across onsite, offsite, programmatic and other emerging Retail Media solutions.

• Identify operational bottlenecks and systematically improve campaign delivery, scalability and efficiency.

• Define the right balance between regional capabilities, local market ownership and automation.

Build Scalable Advertising Solutions

• Act as the senior solutions expert for complex advertiser and agency requirements, translating commercial needs into technically and operationally viable solutions.

• Partner with regional and local commercial teams to design solutions for strategic advertisers, JBPs and complex multi-market campaigns.

• Develop repeatable solutions and frameworks that reduce bespoke execution and allow successful approaches to scale across markets.

• Ensure new commercial propositions are operationally viable before being taken to market.

Drive Product & Technology Development

• Serve as a key bridge between Retail Media commercial teams and Product, Tech and Data teams, translating business and advertiser requirements into clear product needs.

• Identify gaps in our advertising capabilities, tooling and workflows and help prioritize improvements based on commercial impact and operational efficiency.

• Partner with Product teams on the discovery, development, testing and rollout of new advertising products, placements and capabilities.

• Own operational readiness for new product launches, ensuring markets have the processes, documentation, training and support required for successful adoption.

• Drive increased automation and standardization across the Retail Media campaign lifecycle.

Own Campaign Performance & Operational Excellence

• Establish visibility into campaign delivery and operational health across markets, including inventory utilization, campaign pacing, delivery rates, optimization and execution quality.

• Develop frameworks to identify and resolve systemic campaign performance issues.

• Partner with commercial and market teams to maximize the utilization and monetization of available advertising inventory.

• Establish mechanisms for escalation and resolution of complex campaign, platform or delivery issues.

• Use operational and campaign data to continuously improve processes, products and advertiser outcomes.

Strengthen Measurement & Reporting

• Partner with Data, Product and Analytics teams to improve the quality, consistency and scalability of Retail Media measurement and reporting.

• Ensure advertisers and commercial teams have access to clear and reliable campaign performance metrics.

• Support the development of measurement frameworks that demonstrate media effectiveness and advertiser ROI.

• Identify opportunities to improve reporting automation and reduce manual operational workload.

Build the Regional AdOps Centre of Excellence

• Establish and evolve the Ad Operations & Solutions Centre of Excellence, creating scalable standards, playbooks, documentation and best practices for all markets.

• Build the capabilities of local Retail Media and AdOps teams through training, knowledge sharing and structured support.

• Create clear governance and accountability across regional and local teams.

• Benchmark our capabilities against leading Retail Media networks and advertising platforms and continuously raise the maturity of our operation.

Partner Across the Business

• Work closely with local Heads of Retail Media, regional commercial teams, Strategic Partnerships, Product, Tech, Data and Finance to ensure operational priorities support business growth.

• Represent Ad Operations & Solutions in strategic commercial and product discussions.

• Bring an operational and technical perspective into commercial planning, ensuring what we sell can be delivered effectively and at scale.

• Act as a trusted senior advisor to markets on complex operational, product and campaign challenges.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in digital advertising, Ad Operations, advertising technology, media solutions, programmatic, Retail Media or a closely related field.

• Significant experience leading Ad Operations or advertising solutions in a digital platform, Retail Media network, publisher, ad-tech company, media agency or marketplace environment.

• Strong understanding of the digital advertising ecosystem, including onsite media, offsite media, programmatic advertising, campaign trafficking, optimization, measurement and reporting.

• Hands-on understanding of advertising technology and campaign workflows, with the ability to engage credibly with both commercial and technical stakeholders.

• Experience designing and scaling operational processes across multiple teams, businesses or markets.

• Demonstrated ability to translate advertiser and commercial requirements into scalable advertising solutions.

• Experience partnering with Product and Technology teams to develop or improve advertising products and platforms.

• Strong analytical mindset and ability to use campaign and operational data to identify problems and drive improvements.

• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence senior stakeholders across commercial, product and technology functions.

• Experience working across multiple markets or regions is strongly preferred.

• Strong commercial judgment and understanding of how operational and product decisions ultimately impact revenue, advertiser experience and scalability.

• Fluent English communication skills.