As the Air Freight Pricing & Procurement Manager, you will sit at the centre of the APAC Air Freight team, reporting to the Head of Air Freight - APAC. Your job is to get the balance right — buying cost-effectively, selling profitably, and using the pipeline as your tool for active pricing and procurement steering across the region.
Main objectives:
- Balance cost buying and profitable selling across the network.
- Build and strengthen relationships with airlines, vendors and key clients.
- Use the pipeline as a tool to actively steer pricing and procurement decisions that win customers and opportunities.
Carrier, Capacity & Procurement Management:
- Negotiate buying rates, spot prices and Block Space Agreements (BSAs) with airlines and core carriers to support country and regional margin targets.
- Lead QBRs, review carrier performance against KPIs, and own escalation resolution.
- Work closely with the Air Global Team to build a reliable, scalable carrier base across the region.
- Drive regional and global procurement approaches for the winter and summer schedule negotiations, coordinating this process across the region.
- Monitor and drive carrier adherence based on the global partner portfolio.
- Bring a working understanding of carrier compliance and risk factors (e.g. dangerous goods, capacity risk) into vendor decisions.
Pricing Strategy & Tenders:
- Stay on top of pricing across all key opportunities and RFQs/Tenders, partnering closely with Country Procurement, Tender Management and Gateway teams on synergies and network steering.
- Develop recommended minimum selling rates and margin guidance across the region so commercial colleagues can quote fast and stay competitive.
- Own margin logic within the region's instant quotation tool and other Rhenus pricing/rate systems, and analyze hit ratio to identify improvement opportunities.
- Steer country teams' pricing decisions on ad-hoc spot requests, network inquiries and RFQ responses — setting direction without formal authority over the teams themselves.
- Lead customer review sessions to act on identified improvement opportunities.
- Identify frequently occurring lanes to prioritize focus-lane pricing, in alignment with countries on destination handling.
Commercial & Sales Collaboration:
- Collaborate closely with Sales to integrate Air Freight solutions into broader customer engagement and sales initiatives.
- Drive volume growth on key trade lanes by actively following up and steering opportunities.
- Use the Air Freight inbound/outbound pipeline as a tool to actively steer pricing and procurement decisions and convert opportunities into business.
- Support Sales through joint customer visits, RFQ calls and postmortem / implementation calls.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with key clients, stakeholders and partners.
Market Intelligence & Forward Pricing:
- Monitor air cargo trends, fuel surcharges, peak-season shifts and global capacity changes.
- Factor geopolitical and industry developments into forward-looking pricing strategy.
- Keep commercial and country pricing teams equipped with timely market insight.
Cross-Functional Collaboration:
- Act as the pricing and procurement voice in planning with Commercial, Trade Lane Management and Operations, ensuring service meets customer expectations on cost, delivery time and quality.
- Ensure and maintain accurate rate databases, tariffs and cost sheets across Rhenus systems.
- Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Logistics, Supply Chain Management or a related field.
- 5+ years' experience in pricing, procurement, revenue care or commercial roles within air freight; carrier-side or sales-side experience both valued.
- A track record of driving volume growth and meeting or exceeding commercial and margin targets.
- Strong negotiation skills and the ability to build lasting relationships with carriers, vendors and clients alike.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to guide and influence country and sales teams' decisions without formal authority over them.
- Comfortable working both directly with customers (joint visits, RFQ calls) and behind the scenes on carrier negotiations and pricing systems.
- Analytical mindset, comfortable working with hit-ratio and lane-performance data to identify improvement opportunities.
- Sound knowledge of current industry trends, digital pricing/procurement platforms, and regulation.
