Business Development Manager - International Freight Forwarding

Business Development Manager International Freight Forwarding

• Location: Gurgaon
• Reporting To: Commercial Leadership & Managing Director
• Experience: 6 years, including 4+ years in international freight-forwarding business development
• Industry: Freight Forwarding / Logistics

Role Overview:

A leading international freight forwarding company is seeking an experienced and well-connected Business Development Manager 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: IndiaChina, ChinaIndia, IndiaMiddle East, ChinaMiddle East, ChinaUS, IndiaUS, IndiaCanada and ChinaCanada.

Emerging: IndiaUK and IndiaThailand.

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.

Candidate Profile:

• International freight-forwarding or cross-border logistics experience.
• Strong air freight, ocean freight, export/import and cross-trade knowledge.
• Proven exposure to IndiaChina, ChinaIndia, Middle East, US and Canada lanes; IndiaUK and IndiaThailand 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.