The Regional Trade Lane Manager – Europe supports on Europe’s Strategy execution and is responsible for being the first point of contact for rate inquiries, management of tariffs and other key administrative tasks that drive the performance of the trade. This role is accountable for the timely performance and adherence to the trade framework, and the right support to the trade team and the local countries’ teams.
Rate and Price Support
- Respond to inquiries generated within the Region related to the Europe trade, and overseas FCL inquiries in timely manner with the objective of ensuring high success ratios.
- Identify risk taking opportunities, including investments into strategic business as a way to drive growth, and align with the trade management team to materialize such opportunities.
- Monitor and assess the performance of the trade, regularly reviewing key performance indicators (KPIs) to identify areas for improvement and strategic adjustments.
- Align and coordinate with countries and with other trade management team members to maximise the possibilities of converting business opportunities by leveraging on the global, regional and product team structure.
FCL Tariff, Rates and Contract Management
- Assist in RFQs and Tenders, ensuring timeline completion and aiming for high success ratio.
- Coordinate with branches or countries within the Region to ensure that resources are properly leveraged to drive success changes in all inquiries managed by the trade team.
- Revise the competitiveness of regional contracts in line with the framework set up by the trade team.
Carrier Management Relationship Development
- Manage and develop the relationships with global and regional core carriers’ teams.
- Join core carrier meetings and QBRs, while being responsible for taking actionable meeting minutes that serve to drive trade performance with carriers.
- Act as the first escalation point within the trade for any core carrier issues related to Europe trade.
Commercial Collaboration
- Support the commercial teams by visiting customers that are strategic for the Europe trade within any of the regions involved in the trade, with a focus on Regional and Global Key Accounts.
- Close collaboration with Sales, Operations and Country Product Managers to align trade strategy, pricing and capacity with commercial objectives.
- To work closely with the strategic carrier partners to optimize allocations, service performance and commercial competitiveness across the FEWB & Mediterranean trade lanes.
- Coordinate RFQs, tenders and spot opportunities by delivering timely, market-driven pricing and trade solutions.
- Work closely within the APAC network to maximize controlled business, optimize trade mix and identify growth opportunities.
- Support the resolution of commercial and operational challenges through proactive stakeholder engagement and effective cross-functional coordination.
Key Deliverables & Success Measures
- Deliver sustainable volume and gross profit growth across the FEWB & Mediterranean trade lanes.
- Maximize carrier allocation utilization while maintaining service reliability and customer satisfaction.
- Achieve competitive pricing and strong RFQ, tender and spot quotation conversion rates.
- Strengthen strategic carrier partnerships and monitor carrier performance against agreed objectives.
- Grow controlled business while improvi.ng trade profitability across the region.
- Provide market intelligence and trade insights to support pricing, procurement and commercial decision-making.
- Foster strong engagement with country teams to drive consistent execution of regional trade
Market Intelligence and Reporting Support
- Support increasing the understanding of the market within local and regional offices to ensure exceptional trade performance.
- Support in providing necessary information to the trade management team to enable the efficient and effective sharing of information for tools such as the monthly Broadcast, newsletters or similar.
- Manage and monitor the necessary reports related to allocations, performance, rate levels, route updated, capacity, blank sailing or similar in line with the needs of the trade management team.
- Minimum 5 years’ experience in an ocean procurement or operations role in freight forwarding company or ocean carrier.
- University degree in Management, Engineering, Trade or Logistics.
- Service minded and with a high degree of ownership.
- Excellent commercial understanding.
- Negotiation skills and confident manner.
- Proactive and capable of handle responsibility without needing to be micromanaged.
- Excellent cross-cultural communication (both oral and written) and interpersonal skills.
- Outgoing personality.
- Able to communicate well in English both spoken and written.
- Strong analytical and organizational skills.
- Able to work under pressure and to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
- Result driven and persistent in meeting day to day challenges and goals.
- Ability to multi-task in an intense, fast-paced, high-energy environment.
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
- Demonstrate confidence as a performer and lead by example.
- Willingness to travel as needed.
- Ability to maintain a focus on simplicity while dealing with complex challenges.
