Job Purpose
The role will be involved in carrier and vendor relationships, secure competitive contract rates, and ensure logistics plans are translated into on-time, in-full execution.
As an individual contributor reporting directly to the Global Logistics Senior Director, the position combines commercial negotiation and cross-functional coordination, leveraging the company's BCO position to drive cost, service, and reliability advantages.
Key Accountabilities
- Build and maintain strategic relationships with ocean carriers, NVOCCs, inland providers, and port/terminal operators across the network.
- Participate in annual and ad-hoc rate negotiations and contract renewals covering ocean freight, inland haulage, surcharges, and value-added services, securing terms aligned with regional BCO volume leverage.
- Structure contracts with formula-based surcharges, clauses, and clearly defined service commitments while maintaining parallel tender relationships to preserve competitive pressure.
- Manage vendor performance against agreed SLAs and KPIs and conduct periodic business reviews.
- Maintain all carrier and vendor contracts, agreed rates, surcharge schedules, and validity dates, ensuring records are current, complete, and auditable.
- Ensure invoiced charges reconcile against contracted terms and maintain ownership of contract and rate data integrity.
- Partner with Finance on freight budgeting, invoice validation, and cost recovery, and with Trading on Incoterms and contract framework alignment, including GAFTA where applicable.
- Drive end-to-end shipment visibility and proactive exception management through control-tower processes and tracking systems.
- Monitor port and terminal performance.
- Track and analyze freight spend, surcharge exposure, and disruption impacts, including routing and cost effects of market events, and report key risks and actions to the Global Logistics Senior Director.
- Identify cost-reduction and efficiency opportunities across commodities, modes, routes, and providers, and support technology initiatives that improve visibility and reporting.
Key Interfaces
Internal Key Interfaces
- Commercial and Trading: Alignment on procurement commitments, sales requirements, Incoterms, contract frameworks, and shipment priorities.
- Operations and Factories: Coordination of inbound delivery schedules to support production continuity and farm supply requirements.
- Finance: Freight budgeting, invoice validation, accruals, cost recovery, and reconciliation of billed charges against contracted rates.
- Supply Chain and Planning: Shipment scheduling, demand alignment, OTIF monitoring, exception management, and risk escalation.
- IT and Systems: Collaboration on tracking, control-tower visibility, booking workflows, reporting tools, and data integrity improvements.
External Key Interfaces
- Ocean Carriers and NVOCCs: Contract negotiation, capacity planning, service performance, allocation management, and escalation of operational issues.
- Inland Transport Providers: Road, rail, river, and last-mile delivery coordination from ports or inland hubs to factories, processing facilities, and farms.
- Ports and Terminal Operators: Monitoring of discharge, terminal handling, dwell time, congestion, and operational bottlenecks across key ports.
- Customs Brokers, Agents, and Service Providers: Documentation, clearance support, shipment visibility, and compliance with import/export procedures.
Qualifications, Experience, Knowledge & Skills
Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Logistics, Business, International Trade, or a related field is required.
- Relevant professional certifications in logistics, supply chain, trade compliance, procurement, or project management are considered an advantage.
Experience
- Minimum 5 years of experience in international logistics, ocean freight, and multimodal transportation, including direct carrier contract negotiation.
- Proven track record managing complex vendor portfolios and multimodal flows, preferably on the BCO/shipper side.
- Experience handling containerized, bulk, and bagged agri-commodities, including rice, grains, feed, fodder, or related products, is strongly preferred.
- Demonstrated ability to manage end-to-end inbound logistics into industrial, processing, or farm end-user environments.
- Strong commercial acumen with measurable cost-saving, service-improvement, and disruption-management results.
Knowledge & Skills
- Strong negotiation and relationship-building skills across ocean carriers, NVOCCs, inland providers, terminals, and internal stakeholders.
- Analytical and data-driven, with the ability to model freight costs, analyze surcharge exposure, and report performance against budget and KPIs.
- Fluent command of logistics and shipping terminology, including FFE/TEU, BAF/EBS, Incoterms, B/L terms, MQC, demurrage, detention, and terminal handling charges.
- Strong knowledge of freight contracts, service commitments, surcharge mechanisms, rate administration, and invoice validation.
- Able to operate decisively under time pressure and disruption scenarios, with strong personal accountability as an individual contributor.
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