OPERATIONS MANAGER FREIGHT FORWARDING

The ideal candidate will have an ability to establish and lead its freight forwarding operations department in Egypt. The selected manager will initially take direct ownership of execution, then recruit, train, structure, and manage the operations team as the business grows. Responsibilities • Establish the department structure, workflows, SOPs, approval levels, controls, reporting lines, and operational KPIs. • Initially handle quotations, bookings, documentation, agents, suppliers, customs coordination, trucking, customer updates, delivery, and job closure. • Recruit, train, organize, supervise, and develop the Egypt operations team from the ground up. • Lead import and export shipments by air, ocean, land, courier, and multimodal transport, including FCL and LCL. • Coordinate with shipping lines, airlines, overseas agents, customs brokers, ports, airports, terminals, truckers, warehouses, and authorities. • Review shipping and customs documentation and identify regulatory, documentation, cost, or execution risks before movement. • Negotiate supplier rates, verify costs, protect job profitability, and control demurrage, detention, storage, waiting time, and penalties. • Personally resolve complex, urgent, high-value, DG, OOG, project cargo, claims, and operational escalation cases. CANDIDATE REQUIREMENTS • Minimum 5 years of direct freight forwarding and international logistics experience in Egypt. • At least 2 years in an Operations Manager, Section Head, Team Leader, or senior supervisory position. • Strong hands-on experience in Egyptian import and export operations across air, ocean, land, and customs clearance coordination. • Practical knowledge of NAFEZA, ACID, CargoX, HS classification, Incoterms, and international shipping documentation. • Proven dealings with Egyptian ports, airports, customs brokers, shipping lines, airlines, terminals, and inland transport providers. • Experience in pricing, vendor negotiation, job costing, operational expense control, and gross profit monitoring. • Proven capability to build, train, lead, and hold an operations team accountable. • Strong English, leadership, decision-making, communication, negotiation, problem-solving, MS Office, and freight/ERP system skills. Show more