Business Development Manager

A leading international freight forwarding company is seeking an
experienced and well-connected Business Development Leader to build India- and
China-origin freight business from the ground up.

This is a hands-on, individual-contributor role. Ideal candidate must be
comfortable with direct market development, prospecting, agent follow-ups, rate
coordination, reporting and day-to-day commercial groundwork.
This is not a senior people-management position, but a market-building role
designed to create profitable business and support a future independent India
presence.

Priority Trade Lanes

Core: India–China, China–India, India–Middle East, China–Middle East,
China–US, India–US, India–Canada and China–Canada.

Emerging: India–UK and India–Thailand.

Key Responsibilities

- Build profitable export, import and cross-trade business across
priority and emerging trade lanes.
- Identify and approach shippers, exporters, importers, overseas
agents and referral partners.
- Promote India- and China-origin freight business to selected global
regions and priority corridors.
- Close contract rates with carriers, co-loaders, agents and
customers across air freight, ocean freight and related services.
- Manage buy rates, sell rates, FOB-origin charges, local charges and
lane-wise margins to protect profitability.

- Use WCA, local market contacts and origin-based business leads to
develop agent and shipper opportunities.
- Work with the existing local operating partner for operational
execution while identifying additional local partners where needed.
- Convert shipper and agent relationships into recurring import,
export and cross-trade traffic.
- Define and supervise the sales-to-operations workflow from enquiry,
quotation and rate confirmation through booking, documentation, execution,
invoicing and post-shipment follow-up.
- Ensure every confirmed booking is handed over through a clear
process, with shipment details, rate approvals, documentation, escalation
ownership and follow-up responsibilities defined.
- Resolve pricing, service, documentation, capacity and contractual
escalations.
- Maintain daily, weekly and monthly reports covering pipeline,
quotations, bookings, shipment status, revenue, gross profit, conversion,
lane performance and service issues.
- Support the phased development of a scalable and increasingly
independent India business model.

Requirements

- 10–15 years of international freight-forwarding or cross-border
logistics experience.
- Strong air freight, ocean freight, export/import and cross-trade
knowledge.
- Proven exposure to India–China, China–India, Middle East, US and
Canada lanes; India–UK and India–Thailand exposure is advantageous.
- Existing relationships with shippers, exporters, importers,
overseas agents, carriers, co-loaders and forwarding networks.
- Strong ability to sell directly to shippers and overseas agents.
- Proven capability in contract-rate negotiation, buy/sell pricing,
FOB-origin charges, local charges and lane-wise margin management.
- Strong understanding of India export documentation, origin
operations and local market realities.
- Experience with WCA or comparable forwarding networks is strongly
preferred.
- Comfortable working independently, starting from zero and handling
hands-on business-development groundwork.
- Able to coordinate effectively with overseas leadership, local
operating partners and internal operations teams.
- CRM experience, preferably Salesforce or equivalent, is preferred.

KPIs / Performance Metrics

- New shipper, agent and referral accounts secured
- Revenue, shipment-volume and gross-profit growth across priority
lanes
- Contract rates and profitable buy/sell margins secured
- Growth in recurring India- and China-origin import, export and
cross-trade traffic
- Active overseas-agent partnerships and reciprocal business
generated
- Quote-to-booking conversion and lane-wise win rate
- Quality of booking handover and commercial-to-operational workflow
- Daily, weekly and monthly reporting discipline
- Resolution of pricing, service, documentation and operational
escalations
- Progress toward a scalable India business model