Vice President, Operations: Network Operations, Governance

Company Description

Zenith is one of Publicis Groupe’s largest media agencies, spanning 95 markets globally with US offices in New York, Burbank, Chicago, Atlanta and Detroit. For more than 30 years, we have been at the forefront of media, helping to evolve and reshape the industry. We are highly regarded as a true agency partner by many high-profile brands for our expertise across numerous categories and wide range of capabilities that are unparalleled in the industry. Clients hire us for our track record of excellence in strategic planning, investment, and measurement. We also have specialist offerings, including content, commerce, multicultural and future-proofed data capabilities.

Company Description

Zenith is one of Publicis Groupe’s largest media agencies, spanning 95 markets globally with US offices in New York, Burbank, Chicago, Atlanta and Detroit. For more than 30 years, we have been at the forefront of media, helping to evolve and reshape the industry. We are highly regarded as a true agency partner by many high-profile brands for our expertise across numerous categories and wide range of capabilities that are unparalleled in the industry. Clients hire us for our track record of excellence in strategic planning, investment, and measurement. We also have specialist offerings, including content, commerce, multicultural and future-proofed data capabilities.

Overview

About the opportunity PepsiCo is establishing a connected Above Market media operating model with Publicis as its global agency partner. The team will translate PepsiCo’s enterprise standards into a practical, repeatable global-to-local system, enabling specialist capabilities and markets to operate together with clear ownership, efficient workflows and transparent performance. The ambition is to build once, deploy everywhere, and reduce duplicate work rather than add another approval layer.

Role purpose

Lead the design and ongoing operation of the Above Market governance system connecting PepsiCo’s COE, International Beverages (IB), International Foods (IF), Publicis specialist teams, performance hubs and markets. This VP turns an agreed operating model into explicit responsibilities, service standards, decision pathways and a dependable rhythm of business. The role owns the connective “Big O” operating system, not the specialist “small o” execution within each capability. The role also leads the design and coordination of the global financial operating model, including billing and purchase order (PO) workflows, media authorizations, financial forecasting, market-level aggregation and consolidated financial visibility, in partnership with specialist Finance and Investment teams.

Responsibilities

Operating-model architecture and decision rights

• Translate PepsiCo’s approved operating model into end-to-end RACI, service catalogs, responsibility boundaries and handoffs across COE, IB/IF, Publicis and markets.
• Define the practical interface between global capability design, regional/hub support and local market planning, investment and activation, preserving PepsiCo and market decision rights.
• Develop a decision tree for mandatory global standards, local flexibility, exceptions, approvals and escalation, including turnaround times and accountable owners.

Governance and integrated delivery

• Establish cross-capability governance forums, agendas, escalation protocols, decision logs and a single rhythm of business.
• Maintain an integrated dependency register, milestone tracker, issue log and cross-functional delivery status, separating January 2027 readiness from longer-term transformation.
• Create common service standards and SLAs for key requests and handoffs; track compliance and recurrent blockers.
• Partner with finance, data, measurement, investment and strategy leads to consolidate delivery, risk and value visibility without duplicating their specialist operations.

Finance Operations and global financial governance

• Lead the design, standardization and governance of billing, PO and media authorization processes across the PepsiCo media network, including approval responsibilities, documentation, control points and escalations.
• Establish a consistent financial forecasting and market submission process, including cadence, required inputs, variance commentary, reconciliation handoffs and clear accountability for data quality.
• Coordinate financial aggregation across markets and capabilities to support consolidated global financial visibility, working with PepsiCo Finance, Publicis Finance, investment and market finance teams.
• Define the financial operations RACI, reporting definitions, exception handling and operational controls, ensuring processes align with existing Finance policies and contractual requirements.
• Partner with t