Director, Global Sustainability

What You Will Be Serving Up

The Director, Global Sustainability leads the implementation and advancement of KFC’s global sustainability strategy across the People, Food, and Planet pillars. This role translates enterprise ESG commitments into actionable, scalable programs across KFC’s restaurants, supply chain, and franchise system.

Operating within a highly matrixed global organization, this leader partners closely with Yum! Sustainability and cross-functional teams to drive measurable environmental impact reduction, strengthen social impact initiatives, and embed responsible sourcing and reporting standards into KFC’s long-term growth agenda.

Here's How You Will Spice Things Up

• Strategy & Governance
• Lead execution of KFC’s sustainability roadmap aligned with Yum! enterprise goals.
• Advise the Global CMO and senior leadership on priority ESG topics, risks, and emerging regulations.
• Support target setting, KPI development, and governance frameworks.
• Planet Pillar (Environmental Impact)
• Drive initiatives to reduce emissions, energy use, waste, water impact, and improve sustainable packaging across restaurants and supply chain.
• Partner with Global Supply Chain to assess supplier environmental performance and risk.
• Oversee sustainability data collection, validation, and reporting in coordination with Yum!.
• Food Pillar
• Partner with Supply Chain and Food Innovation to advance responsible sourcing, animal welfare, and nutrition transparency.
• Cascade Yum! standards and best practices into practical execution playbooks for markets and franchisees.
• People Pillar (Social Impact & Community)
• Collaborate closely with the Yum! Sustainability COE and relevant functional leaders to align and implement People pillar initiatives across KFC.
• Support global markets and franchisees in activating purpose-driven programs consistent with enterprise strategy and measurement standards.
• Performance & Communications
• Define and manage sustainability scorecards across People, Food, and Planet.
• Evaluate program effectiveness and recommend improvements.
• Partner with Communications to develop internal and external sustainability messaging and executive materials.
  
  
  

What You Bring To The Table

• 8–12+ years of experience in sustainability, ESG, or CSR within a global organization.
• Proven ability to implement sustainability strategies across complex, matrixed environments.
• Strong experience in data tracking, KPI development, and sustainability reporting.
• Deep knowledge of environmental and supply chain sustainability topics.
• Strong executive presence, communication skills, and ability to influence senior stakeholders.
• Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s preferred.
  
  
  

What’s In It For You

• Competitive salary and benefits package.
• Opportunity to innovate within a global brand and make a significant impact.
• Collaborative, fast-paced work environment with a focus on professional growth and development.
  
  
  

Salary Range: $164,500 – $175,000 annually + bonus eligibility. This is the expected salary range for this position. Ultimately, in determining pay, we'll consider the successful candidate’s location, experience, and other job-related factors.

Who is KFC?

KFC, a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. (NYSE: YUM.), is a global chicken restaurant brand with a rich, decades-long history of success and innovation. It all started with one cook, Colonel Harland Sanders, who believed in doing things “the hard way,” because nothing ever got done right by cutting corners. Hard work, hospitality and integrity are still core to our brand today.

While we’re grounded in our heritage, we’re always looking forward to the future and evolving to make it easier for our customers to enjoy our chicken. Through digital innovation, our goal is to make KFC available everywhere, implementing a frictionless & friendly experience leveraging scalable technology stack and standards and accelerating rollouts via multiple channels. And we’re growing… a new KFC restaurant opens somewhere in the world every six hours.

As we grow, KFC is committed to doing so responsibly through commitments like our 2025 global plastic packaging goal and the KFC Harvest program, which to date has donated over 82 million pounds of food to our local communities around the world. Our purposes is feeding people’s potential, whether that means helping team members get through school, turn their passion for fried chicken into a career, or being a positive force in our communities. We fight inequality and believe in all people. Everyone has a seat at our table: from millionaires to truck drivers, to our more than 800,000 Team Members, to our customers around the world, KFC treats everyone like family.

Our people are what make us distinctively KFC, and we value every opportunity to celebrate the unique perspectives and backgrounds they bring to our company. To learn more about KFC Global, check out our company page here.