Inbound Transportation Director

about the role**Permanent Job Alert**

**Role**: Inbound Transportation Director**Rate**: €150,000 + Bonus**Location**:Berlin - 3 days a week-
**ROLE PURPOSE**
- Forsyth Barnes have exclusively partnered with a leading German retail organisation to search for a Inbound Transportation DirectorAs the Director - Inbound Transportation (f/m/x), you will be part of the Management Team in their logistics area and will directly report into the COO. You will lead a team of ~8 people from the ocean freight team that ships our products from Asia (mainly China) to various locations in Europe.

The 3 main aspects of this role are:

- Operations Management
- Vendor & Contract Management
- Strategic Planning (vendor strategy/ market development)

**What you will do**:
You are responsible for the strategic and operational carrier management of the business for inbound shipping.

**This includes**:

- Booking of containers from Asia to Europe
- Close coordination with purchasing/commercial, warehousing teams on booking
- You are also responsible for managing strategic partnership with ocean freight carriers/forwarders, customs, barge vendors etc. and responsible for their performance
- This includes price/ contract negotiations
- Maintaining relationships to understand how the market is evolving
- Able to secure capacity based on relationships during tough times (e.g. Suez situation)
- You will develop a suitable long term vendor strategy (how many vendors/ what services/forwarder vs. carrier) based on growth forecasts, markets we want to serve
- You are a skilled negotiator of prices and contracts with the vendors (e.g. - do we go forfixed price vs. SCFI linked pricing, demmurage & detention buffers, ot her fine prints thatimpact pricing)
- Budget monitoring and proactive cost controlling are a natural part of your work Your team manages and controls the external service providers and is also your link to the internal stakeholders, such as the purchasing/ commercial teams and the warehouses
- You work independently to identify optimization potential, derive projects from it an implement them successfully
- You work with the analytics teams to create performance dashboards (on Operational
- KPIs, e.g. - transit times), and make these visible to the management
- You select potential new partners and, together with your team, integrate them smoothly into the existing logistics processes

**What we are looking for**:

- You have a successfully completed degree, preferably with a focus on logistics or supplychain management
- You have already gained leadership experience of mid sized teams
- You have good knowledge of the international eCommerce business
- You can look back on several years of professional experience in a comparable position, ideally within an eCommerce/or shipping/ ocean forwarding business
- You score with an excellent understanding of logístical processes, a distinct ability to analyse and an affinity for numbers as well as with a results-oriented way of working
- You communicate easily with different stakeholders, using your assertiveness and persuasiveness
- You are fluent in German and English, other languages are an advantage