The Director of Ocean Freight will oversee the Ocean Freight Department. He / She will be responsible for that team's product compliance, quality outcomes to internal and external stakeholders, volume and revenue growth, yield, operating efficiency, with a specific focus on customer service and client satisfaction.
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: • Oversees all direct shipment-level communication between the company and customers, carriers, and vendors (i.e. delays, shipping instructions, status inquiries, billing discrepancies.) • Acts as senior product subject matter expert when communicating with internal and external parties. • Ensures all client requests are within established scope of services and that all services conducted are invoiced to the customer. • Manages and addresses all escalations in regard to file profitability - audit and identify files with loss or low margin and work with their team members to determine root cause and implement corrective action. • Actively pursues feedback from their team members and customers to identify opportunities to increase service levels, productivity, profitability, and quality. • Provides products and management with objective feedback regarding vendor performance levels, escalates issues in a timely manner to ensure best level of service. • Monitors, assigns, and ensures the resolution of any account's payable issues within area of responsibility. • Identifies market conditions that could impact customers and proactively develops solutions to avoid service issues. • Maintains service relations with carriers, vendors, customers, and other offices. • Responsible to measure, analyze, and improve external or internal KPIs for area of responsibility. • Ensures that customer standard operating procedures (CSOPs) are developed and maintained in conjunction with Account Management and Sales. • Identifies client trends (volume drop or increase) and escalates as necessary. • Performs back-up for desk-level Ocean Export Agents during periods of high volume or when staffing requires - during vacations, leaves of absence, etc. • Organizes and conducts daily huddles / team meetings to share information, set priorities, and discuss recurring issues. • Responsible to ensure all assigned full time and part time employees are trained, certified, and re-certified periodically on internal and external standard operating procedures and regulatory requirements. • Validates product staff understand and comply with customer and company standard operating procedures. • Assists management by proactively providing input on talent acquisition, re-assignment, demotion, and promotion. • Conducts regular employee performance review meetings and sets performance goals to drive employee development. • Manages staffing levels based on business development, peak volume periods, department performance metrics, and employee vacations.
EDUCATION AND/OR EXPERIENCE • Two years of prior experience in a supervisory role preferred • Minimum five years of experience in the Ocean export role preferred and must have at least three years working in Ocean Export for a freight forwarder.