Main responsibilities:
Reporting to the Project Operations Manager, the role of the Freight Operations Manager (FOM) is to provide effective management of the warehousing, transport and distribution functions. Ensure cost effective, on-time delivery performance and full chain of custody underpinned by end-to-end shipment visibility from source to delivery. The FWM is responsible for the strategy, sourcing, contracting, and onboarding LSP's for freight forwarding and warehousing.
Specific Responsibilities:
Strategy, market dynamics and client engagement
- Responsible for the development and regular update freight and warehousing strategy which is aligned with the companies overall strategy.
- Monitors the market to stay abreast of market dynamics via desk research, networking and the attendance of key meetings and conferences.
- Acts a subject matter expert (SME) and provides clients with regular market updates and communicates the freight and warehousing strategy.
- Acts as point of escalation for clients on freight and warehousing matters.
Sourcing, contracting and performance management
- Sources and pre-qualifies eligible freight and warehousing service providers by monitoring the market and networking with existing and potential providers.
- In collaboration with relevant stakeholders, develops robust contracts with service providers with supporting scope/s of work, SLAs and any other ad hoc agreements.
- Where applicable, runs tenders for freight and warehousing services.
- Responsible for tender award decisions which maintain a healthy market and aligned with overall strategy.
- Continuously monitors service provider performance via established KPIs, dashboards & alerts, regular business reviews and ad hoc communication.
- Responsible for periodical audits of service providers.
- Drives continuous improvement initiatives in the freight and warehousing space.
Operational Management
- Leads the freight and warehousing operations acting as a main point of escalation for operational staff, especially for incidents, supply chain bottlenecks and service provider performance breakdowns.
- Assist logistics process for the development of new freight, warehousing services and inventory control.
- Improve the overall supply chain performance and look for any possible innovations to the shipping activities.
- Develop new and existing relationships with service providers.
- Attends relevant operational leadership meetings.
People Management
- Manages the Freight and Warehousing team and related HR activities, e.g. check-ins, performance cycles, etc.
- Central point of contact for the team's day-to-day requests such as training, leave, sickness, insuring proper communication to the HR.
- Leading and coaching the team to perform and to meet the organization's expectations for productivity, quality, and goal accomplishment.
- Following up on career development paths with team members and support of HR.
- Consciously create a workplace culture that is consistent with the overall organization's mission, vision, guiding principles, and values of the organization.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor degree in Transportation, Business or a related field.
- Minimum of 8 years of progressively responsible experience in a commercial/government organization at the national and international level in the transportation and insurance field, preferably with major international shipping and freight companies.
- Proven track record in the movement and protection of pharmaceutical goods and a strong knowledge of the challenges, including regulatory, involved in providing an effective, reliable and quality-assured distribution service in the developing world.
- Proven capability to manage 3PL KPI performance metrics.
- Strong leadership and proven ability to recruit, direct, train, and manage a team of personnel.
- Strong negotiation skills and contracting and service-level agreement management experience with logistics' suppliers.
- Strong action management including the ability to manage project in the most cost efficient manner; resourcefulness, initiative, maturity of judgement, and the ability to make sound decisions under pressing conditions.
- Strong organization skills with an eye for details, ability to plan, prioritize and implement day-to-day operations in a timely manner in a fast moving, dynamic and time-bound environment.
- Strong interpersonal skills and an ability to work across disciplines and in diverse locations internationally.
- Advanced computing skills in standard software systems, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Project.
- Willingness to travel, and perform other duties as needed.
- Previous experience working with international donor agencies, preferred.
- Excellent written and oral communication skills. English fluency required, including speaking, writing, understanding, and reading.
