Regional Director of Planning and Network Optimization
The opportunity:
Our Air Freight Team continues to grow and as part of that growth we're looking to expand our Air team with a Regional Director of Planning and Network Optimization based in our Chicago Office for ORD.
You will:
Lead Air Planning/Operations Team in the Americas:
- Define the organization required to execute on our Air business (import and export)
- Recruit a high performing team to execute on our Air business
- Formalize operating procedures and standards for the team for import and export business,
ensuring they are aligned with our other region processes - Formalize Air Planning/Operations team objectives and Key Performance Indicators and
ensure there are metrics in place to measure success - Manage performance of Air Planning team
- Overseeing day to day team performance and managing escalations
- Ensuring regular coaching and performance review to drive team progress
Air infrastructure set-up in the Americas:
- Participate in the launch planning of all new offices to support Flexport growth in the Americas aligning headcount, operating procedures and implementation timelines with the commercial side of Flexport organization
- Source airline terminals to execute on our charter operations, running through both a qualitative and quantitative due diligence on their pricing and capabilities
- Participate in the sourcing of warehousing infrastructures in the Americas and ensure clear operating processes are established between warehousing and Air team on how to execute
- Implement KPIs to measure vendors quality and manage their performance through regular business reviews
Manage Air contract fulfilment:
- Undertake responsibility for the fulfillment of our capacity (Air contracts & charter space)
- Constantly monitor and drive fulfillment of our contract tonnage and charter capacity
- Set up and manage co-loaders / GSAs to manage excess / shortage vs. our capacity
- Ensure we are highly reliable partners for airlines (no cancellations, late deliveries, etc…)
Drive operational excellence for Air imports/exports into Americas:
- Ensure 100% adherence to quoted transit time for all shipments touching Americas (imports/exports)
- Constantly monitor transit time adherence for Americas imports and exports, identify gaps in performance and document root causes
- Implement corrective actions with Flexport teams (for insourced countries) or freight forwarding partner nominated in the country (for outsourced countries)
- Drive shipment exception rate to 0% for Americas imports and exports
- Constantly monitor shipment exceptions and identify root causes of exceptions
- Implement corrective actions with Flexport teams (for insourced countries) or freight forwarding partner nominated in the country (for outsourced countries)
- Drive planning time (from booking reception to flight assigned) to 0 “Instant planning”:
- Constantly monitor planning time and identify gaps in performance
- Implement corrective actions with Flexport teams (for insourced countries) or freight forwarding partner nominated in the country (for outsourced countries)
- Drive the roadmap to reach 100% instant planning by our software in the Americas, leveraging machine learning to make the right allocation decisions
Air Planning/Operations processes & tools development:
- Ensure all operating processes in the Americas for import and export are formalized
- Constantly drive operational processes improvements and work with Air engineering team to improve Flexport software for Air Operations
Lead digital adoption for Air Operations functionalities in the Americas:
- Map out which Air forwarding tasks are currently done in Flexport app vs. other tools for all Americas offices (insource or outsource)
- Formalize the roadmap/required actions to get all our Flexport team, all vendors and Freight Forwarding partners in the Americas to execute all Air forwarding tasks in our app
- Lead the implementation of our tools (formalize and deliver training, set and monitor KPIs on digital adoption, manage the change, and report results to Air management)
You should have:
- Previous leadership experience in Freight Forwarding managing an operational team (customer service, space planning or operations) or as a logistics consultant
- Strong analytical background and mastery of analytical tools (Excel, etc…)
- Very structured with high level of energy
- Excellent at process mapping and able to design and fully document processes from scratch
- Able and willing to work long/intense hours required in startup environment
- Strategic vision and ground floor execution: able to do any task required for the business
- Excellent communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills
- An obsession with client happiness. You succeed when they succeed
- Courage to challenge the status quo when logic and reason require it. See something broken? Fix it.
About Flexport:
We believe global trade can move the human race forward. That’s why it’s our mission to make global trade easier for everyone. We aim to do this by building the Operating System for Global trade - a strategic model combining advanced technology and data analytics, logistics infrastructure, and supply chain expertise. Flexport today connects almost 10,000 clients and suppliers across 109 countries, including established global brands like Georgia-Pacific as well as emerging innovators like Sonos. Started in 2013, we've raised over $1.3B in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund, Founders Fund, GV, First Round Capital and Y Combinator. We’re excited about the three big ways we’re moving forward after our recent $1B investment from SoftBank Vision Fund in February 2019.
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.