About this role
Sr Manager, Real Estate
Job Purpose
The Senior Manager, Real Estate serves as a strategic advisor to franchise partners and internal stakeholders, supporting Panera’s real estate strategy with a strong emphasis on portfolio optimization, reinvestment planning, and development governance. The Senior Manager partners with franchisees and internal stakeholders to support both traditional bakery-café development and non-traditional opportunities, ensuring alignment with Panera’s growth objectives, brand standards, and real estate strategy. They will focus on guiding franchisees through market planning, site evaluation, remodel/refresh/relocation decisions, and long-range portfolio strategy. The Senior Manager ensures alignment with Panera’s brand standards, financial objectives, and development processes while supporting the Director of Real Estate in executing enterprise-wide initiatives. The successful candidate will have a keen and up to date understanding of real estate trends and activities in their markets. They must make fact-based decisions and have the confidence to articulate them.
Location: Field-based/Remote
Duties & Responsibilities
• Advise franchise partners on portfolio optimization, including remodels, refreshes, relocations, closures, and reinvestment prioritization. • Provide franchisees with guidance on site feasibility, trade area strength, and long-term market potential, ensuring alignment with Panera’s criteria for demographics, access, visibility, and operational feasibility. • Conduct real estate performance reviews to help franchisees diagnose issues and help identify strategic actions. • Support franchisees in evaluating existing cafés and determining appropriate reinvestment or repositioning strategies. • Partner with the Director of Real Estate and Real Estate Strategy to support long-range market planning and ADA alignment. • Support franchise partners through LOI review, lease negotiation guidance, and development process expectations. • Present franchise opportunities to the Development Committee on behalf of the franchise partner. • Build strong working relationships with Operations, Construction, Design, Legal, Finance, and Project Management. • Partner with Portfolio Management to support lease renewals, relocations, remodels, and other portfolio actions. • Monitor franchise development pipelines to ensure timely movement through intake, evaluation, design, and permitting. • Ensure franchise partners understand Panera’s development standards, timelines, and approval processes. • Support updates to market plans and maintain accurate documentation of market conditions and development activity. • Maintain strong relationships with brokers, developers, municipalities, and other external stakeholders. • Represent Panera professionally at industry meetings, conferences, and development community events. • Maintain project information and timelines using tools like FranConnect and Sitewise. Qualifications (Education & Experience)
• 5+ years of experience in commercial real estate, preferably in multi-unit restaurant or retail environments. • Experience advising franchisees or managing franchise development processes is strongly preferred. • Exposure to non-traditional development projects, alternative venue formats, or multi-channel restaurant growth is preferred. • Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret market data, financial performance, and real estate trends. • Excellent oral and written communication skills; highly organized and detail oriented. • Ability to influence others through coaching, counseling, and fact-based communication. • Demonstrated ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced environment. Personal Qualifications
The successful candidate will:
• Be an innovative and strategic thinker that is detail and relationship oriented. • Be a high-energy, creative, flexible, purposeful, self-starting individual who is capable of quickly building relationships. • Be a great communicator who will quickly develop credibility and rapport with franchisees and cross-functional partners. • Utilize FACT-BASED COMMUNICATION skills with an ability to present complex data and problems in a concise, simplified, and effective manner. • Provider of CLARITY via excellent written and verbal communication skills. • Take ownership and pride in growing the retail business. • Be ambitious, initiative-taking, and willing to do whatever it takes to contribute to the Company’s continued success. • Have excellent planning and organizational skills and demonstrate strong presentation skills. • Customer service approach with ability to be HIGHLY RESPONSIVE to sensitive issues, complex inquiries, and concerns from both Field-Based and Corporate-Based associates and leadership. • Strong BIAS TOWARDS ACTION through effective project and process management.
Working Conditions
• 50% travel
Physical Requirements
• While performing this job, the incumbent is regularly required to stand, sit, talk, hear, & use hands and fingers to operate keyboards.
Equal Opportunity Employer: Disabled/Veterans Competitive Pay $145,305 - $165,648 annually
The actual pay offered will be determined by multiple factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s relevant experience, job-related knowledge, skills, and geographical location. Individual compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.
Saint Louis Support Center