Senior Manager, International Operations Excellence

What’s Unique About You Is What Makes Us Better! Diversity is our strength and competitive advantage. Bring your flavor to the Papa John's team today!

Job Summary

The Senior Manager - International Training is accountable for developing, deploying, and sustaining high impact training programs directly within Papa Johns’ international markets. This role embeds capability building in markets, working closely with Franchise business partners, Operations Excellence, and regional leadership to strengthen execution, elevate performance, and accelerate business outcomes. This position is performance driven, market focused, and execution focused, ensuring training actively improves operational KPIs across countries and partners. This role ensures that each market has the capability, tools, and confidence to deliver consistently excellent operations standards, guest experience, food quality, and people development outcomes through strategic training implementation.

The Senior Manager - International Training leads training strategy, program adaptation, development, and implementation across Papa Johns’ global franchise network. This role partners directly with market operational leaders to assess capability gaps, build tailored training solutions, deliver coaching, and support the execution of programs that drive measurable operational performance improvements. The purpose of the role is to translate global operational standards into real market capability, ensuring training directly improves results in sales, pizza quality, speed of service, consistency, ROIP and guest satisfaction (OSAT).

Duties and Responsibilities: 
Market Capability Assessment & Development

• Conduct structured training and capability assessments across international markets.

• Identify capability gaps tied to operational KPIs, people development and brand standards.

• Build market-specific training improvement plans aligned to business goals.

• Establish and maintain relationships with market leaders, franchisees, and regional operations teams.

Training Program Deployment & Facilitation

• Lead the rollout of global training programs across multiple countries, ensuring understanding, adoption, and execution.

• Facilitate instructor-led programs, workshops, leadership training, and operational excellence sessions.

• Train and certify market training leads, franchise trainers, and operations coaches.

• Support new market openings, ownership transitions, and leadership onboarding.

• New product launch execution and training.

Restaurant Support & Performance Coaching

• Leverage the ROIP program to deliver coaching, embed standards and improve operational consistency.

• Observe live operations, diagnose root causes of performance issues, and coach teams.

• Support implementation of new systems, processes, or standards directly in-market.

• Partner with franchise owners and managers to build long-term people development capability.

Training Effectiveness & Performance Results

• Track training outcomes using operational KPIs and people development metrics.

• Provide reporting to senior leadership on market performance, risks, and opportunities.

• Continuously refine training deployment approaches based on market feedback and results.

Global Alignment & Stakeholder Collaboration

• Work closely with International Operations, Ops Excellence, Regional GM’s, and global training partners to ensure alignment.

• Support local global training programs for regional needs without altering core brand standards.

• Ensure quality, consistency, and compliance in all market-led training activities.

Education, Experience & Certifications

• A bachelor’s degree in Human Resources, Education, or a related field

• A minimum of 3 years of experience in training and development, with proven experience in instructional design and curriculum development.

• Proficiency in learning management systems and training software is also important

• A master’s degree or professional certifications   (eg, CPLP) is preferred or equivalent experience

Functional Skills

• Strong operational understanding of restaurant or retail multi-unit environments.

• Proven experience delivering training or operational coaching in international or franchised businesses.

• Ability to influence senior and franchise-owner levels.

• Strong facilitation, coaching, and presentation skills.

• Cultural sensitivity and ability to adapt to diverse global environments.

• Ability to travel internationally extensively.

• Analytical ability to link training execution with business performance metrics.    

Our Values

• EVERYONE BELONGS - We believe connectedness and belonging are the essential ingredients to our success

• DO THE RIGHT THING - We are relentlessly focused on quality and integrity and make the right choices, even when it's difficult

• PEOPLE FIRST - To craft positive experiences for our customers, we take care of each other first

• INNOVATE TO WIN - We champion and challenge for a better way in all we do

• HAVE FUN - We find joy, create meaningful impact and celebrate the journey together

Our Core Competencies

• CUSTOMER CENTRIC - We leverage data and insights to craft a customer experience that builds relationships, cultivates trust, and delivers excellence

• RESULTS DRIVEN – We focus on measurable outcomes by remaining optimistic, tenacious, and persistent even in the face of challenges

• CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT - We champion for better through strategic risk taking, experimentation and challenging the status quo

• BIAS FOR ACTION - We courageously lead, drive towards decisions, and maintain agility to meet the demands of our dynamic industry

• WINNING TOGETHER - We work together to unlock our full potential by actively collaborating and contributing in a cross-functional capacity

Papa Johns is an equal opportunity employer.

Papa Johns is a federal contractor that participates in the E-Verify program to confirm employment eligibility for each new team member. We also comply with all Right to Work requirements. Official E-Verify and Right to Work notices are available for applicants to review in both English and Spanish.

Everybody loves pizza, which means they also love the people who are behind the scenes working to deliver it. This is complex and challenging work – but let’s face it – it’s also pizza! If you want a fulfilling career with a company that’s always moving forward, we’re the right place.

Papa John's is a Federal Contract employer who participates in E-Verify to confirm employment eligibility for each new team member. For more information please view the following PDFs: E-Verify Poster (English) - Right to Work Poster (English) - E-Verify Poster (Spanish) - Right to Work Poster (Spanish) Papa John's is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer. For more information please click on the following PDF. See terms & conditions for site use.