Head of Forwarding

Alistair Group is one of East and Southern Africa’s fastest growing service companies, providing a variety of self-delivered logistics solutions across several geographies, aimed with the vision to Make Africa Work Better! With core competencies in road freight, warehousing, commodity trading, and operational hire of material handling equipment, the Group strives for continuous expansion of innovative ancillary services to grow the business vertically, complemented by a healthy dose of entrepreneurial flair. The business has gone from strength to strength, growing quickly in both its geographical coverage and variety of services offered to clients. In 2024, the Group exceeded the 1000 employee mark and managed a fleet of well over 1000 trucks. With Alistair’s aggressive and exciting growth strategy, the Group is poised for significant further expansion and a greater impact in Africa.

Core Services:

• Forwarding
• Customs & Clearance
• Energy Industry Support Services
• Equipment Rental
• Commodity Trading
• Integrated Solutions
• Warehousing
• Ocean Freight

Industries:

• Mining
• Oil & Gas
• Agriculture
• Construction
• Explosives
• Renewables

Mission: To make Africa work better

Company Values: Customer Focus, Continual Improvement, Honesty, Humility, and Safety.

Accountabilities & Responsibility Areas:

As Head of Forwarding, you will be responsible for leading and developing the forwarding division, ensuring an exemplary customer experience, whilst driving operational excellence, profit growth, and strategic expansion of the company’s forwarding services across all modes of transport. The role combines strategic leadership with extensive operational expertise to drive business growth while maintaining service quality and ensuring strategic alignment of all service lines to keep the customer at top of mind in all internal and external interactions.

Strategic Leadership:

• Develop and execute a comprehensive forwarding strategy aligned with company objectives
• Drive business growth through new service development and market expansion
• Identify and pursue strategic partnerships
• Develop and implement comprehensive client experience strategies across all service lines (freight forwarding, warehousing, customs clearance, last mile delivery) and across all geographical areas of operation.
• Define and maintain service level agreements (SLA’s) and key performance indicators (KPI’s)
• Create and oversee the execution of client journey maps to identify pain points and opportunities
• Keep up-to-date with industry trends and best practices in customer experience management
• Measure and report on key performance indicators related to customer experience

Customer Experience:

• Establish and maintain strategic relationships with key enterprise clients
• Ensure high levels of customer satisfaction
• Drive service innovation based on customer needs
• Resolve high-level customer escalations
• Lead business reviews with major accounts
• Develop escalation protocols and personally manage critical client issues
• Drive proactive communication strategies during supply chain disruptions

Service Integration:

• Ensure seamless integration of various logistics services for customers
• Coordinate with different service line heads (ocean freight, road freight, warehousing, and customs and clearance) to optimize service delivery
• Implement end-to-end visibility solution for customers across all service touchpoints

Revenue and Profitability Management:

• Develop and manage the division budget and P&L responsibility
• Drive profitability through effective yield management
• With the various service line heads, develop and implement pricing strategies that align with customer experience quality
• Identify opportunities for upselling and cross-selling through improved customer journey mapping
• Analyze customer acquisition cost and lifetime value to optimize profitability
• Lead initiatives to reduce customer service costs while maintaining service excellence
• Partner with Finance to develop ROI models for customer experience investments

Operations Management:

• Oversee all customer-facing activity relating to all forwarding operations, including ocean and land freight, warehousing, and customs clearance
• Oversee end-to-end operational delivery of customer solutions across freight forwarding (road and ocean), warehouse operations, customs and clearance, and last mile delivery
• Lead capacity planning and resource allocation across service lines
• Monitor and optimize operational costs while maintaining service quality
• Coordinate contingency planning and business continuity measures
• Drive operational technology implementations and improvements

Team Leadership:

• Foster collaboration between account management, operations, and commercial teams

Data Analytics & Reporting:

• Establish client experience metrics and reporting frameworks
• Monitor and analyze client satisfaction scores, retention rates, and growth metrics
• Provide reports to the senior management team on customer experience performance
• Use data analytics to identify trends and improvement opportunities

Process Improvement:

• Implement and optimize customer feedback mechanisms
• Lead continuous improvement initiatives based on customer insights
• Develop standardized operating procedures for customer engagement

Cross-functional Collaboration:

• Establish and lead cross-functional teams for major customer implementations
• Coordinate with department heads to ensure aligned service delivery
• Develop collaborative workflows between service lines to prevent silos

Skills & Qualifications:

• Relevant Degree and Postgraduate qualification in Business Management, Supply Chain Management or Logistics
• 10 years’ successful track record in a commercial, business development or logistics/supply chain management
• Proven track record in managing large, complex client relationships
• Experience in the Logistics Industry/Supply Chain Management/Mining & Minerals
• Work experience in Sub-Saharan Africa. Asia exposure is highly advantageous
• Key competencies: Product Knowledge, Communication, Leadership, Relationship building & Problem-solving skills

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