The Guinness Ghana Breweries Marketing & Innovations Director will share how innovation, portfolio strategy and commercial discipline can help beverage brands navigate inflation, shifting consumer behaviour and Africa’s increasingly complex business landscape.
Sabina Manu, Marketing & Innovations Director at Guinness Ghana Breweries PLC, is set to speak at the New Pour Summit in Nairobi on July 25, where she will address how beverage brands can sustain growth in increasingly volatile markets.
At a time when inflation continues to squeeze household spending, consumer loyalty is becoming harder to earn, and competition is intensifying across virtually every beverage category, Manu represents a new generation of marketing leaders whose influence extends far beyond advertising. Her career has been shaped by a challenge that now confronts beverage businesses across the continent: how do brands continue to grow when markets become more volatile and consumers more selective?
That question lies at the heart of this year’s New Pour Summit theme, Liquid Resilience: Africa Future-Proofing Beverage Brands in Africa’s VUCA Market.
With more than 15 years of leadership across FMCG, fintech and banking, Manu has built a reputation for turning commercial strategy into measurable business performance. As Marketing & Innovations Director at Guinness Ghana Breweries, she leads portfolio strategy, brand development and innovation for one of West Africa’s leading beverage companies. Before assuming her current role, she spent five years leading customer marketing within the business, helping strengthen some of the company’s most recognised brands.
Earlier in her career, Manu spent more than a decade with Equatorial Coca-Cola Bottling Company, where she managed marketing across eight West African markets and oversaw a portfolio of 17 beverage brands. Operating across multiple countries, consumer segments and retail environments gave her first-hand experience navigating the diverse commercial realities that define Africa’s beverage industry today.
That regional perspective has never been more relevant.
Across the continent, beverage companies are operating in what strategists describe as a VUCA environment, one characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Rising production costs, foreign exchange pressures, changing consumer expectations, digital disruption and increasingly fragmented retail channels have forced businesses to rethink traditional growth strategies.
For marketers, growth is no longer driven by creative campaigns alone. It requires disciplined portfolio management, meaningful innovation, sharper consumer insights and the ability to adapt quickly to changing market conditions.
These are precisely the issues Manu is expected to explore during her session at the New Pour Summit. Drawing on her experience across multinational beverage systems, she is expected to share practical insights into how brands can build resilience, accelerate innovation and deliver sustainable growth even in challenging economic environments.
For beverage executives, founders, commercial leaders and marketing professionals, her session promises more than inspiration. It offers an opportunity to learn from a leader who has managed iconic brands across some of Africa’s most dynamic and demanding markets, translating strategy into commercial results.
The New Pour Summit brings together senior executives, innovators, investors and policymakers from across the beverage value chain to examine the ideas shaping the industry’s future. Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty and rapid market change, conversations like Manu’s are expected to provide practical frameworks that businesses can apply long after the summit concludes.
As Africa’s beverage sector enters a new era of competition, resilience will increasingly separate market leaders from the rest. Sabina Manu’s session is set to explore not just how brands survive uncertainty, but how they can use it as a catalyst for stronger, more sustainable growth.
The New Pour Summit 2026 takes place on 25 July in a hybrid format from Nairobi and online, bringing together some of Africa’s leading beverage executives and industry experts to explore strategies for future-proofing beverage businesses. Whether you are a brand owner, marketer, manufacturer, distributor or investor, the summit offers a unique opportunity to engage with the ideas and leaders shaping the continent’s beverage industry. Registration is now open, Click here to secure your Pass
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