Sr. Manager / Director - Freight Forwarding

Job Purpose:

To lead and direct Asyad Logistics’ Freight Forwarding business in Oman, ensuring profitable growth, commercial expansion, operational excellence, and strong financial control across Air, Sea, Road Freight, and Customs Clearance activities. The role carries full P&L accountability for the Freight Forwarding business, with responsibility for driving revenue growth, margin improvement, service quality, business transformation, and disciplined working capital management including timely billing, collections, and cash flow performance. The role supports Oman’s positioning as a regional logistics hub while ensuring compliance with ASYAD Group standards, OIA governance, Oman Labour Law, customs regulations, and international trade requirements.

Main Accountabilities and Responsibilities:

• Develop and execute the Freight Forwarding strategy, annual business plan, and budget in alignment with Asyad Logistics’ growth ambitions and national logistics objectives.
• Drive commercial expansion by winning new business, penetrating target sectors, strengthening customer relationships, and building a healthy pipeline across Air, Sea, Road Freight, and Customs Clearance services.
• Identify and develop new products, trade lanes, customer segments, and value-added forwarding solutions that enhance revenue, competitiveness, and market share.
• Build and strengthen strategic relationships with airlines, shipping lines, overseas agents, transport partners, customs stakeholders, and key government entities to improve capability, reach, and commercial positioning.
• Lead the Freight Forwarding business to support Oman’s role as a competitive regional gateway and logistics hub.
• Ensure all strategic initiatives and business activities are aligned with ASYAD Group standards, OIA governance requirements, and relevant regulatory frameworks.
• Hold full P&L accountability for the Freight Forwarding business, ensuring sustainable revenue growth, margin improvement, cost discipline, and delivery of agreed financial targets.
• Lead end-to-end Freight Forwarding operations across Air, Sea, Road Freight, and Customs Clearance to ensure service reliability, operational excellence, compliance, and customer satisfaction.
• Drive pricing discipline, job profitability, vendor cost control, and operational efficiency to improve gross margin and EBIT performance.
• Ensure strong financial leadership across the business through timely and accurate billing, reduction of revenue leakage, disciplined credit control, proactive collections follow-up, and close monitoring of overdue receivables and cash conversion.
• Oversee operational and commercial controls to ensure timely job closure, complete cost capture, accurate invoicing, and proper handover to finance.
• Manage key cost drivers including transport procurement, vendor agreements, subcontracted services, manpower, claims exposure, and service failures.
• Ensure full compliance with customs rules, international trade regulations, internal governance requirements, and health, safety, security, and quality standards.
• Maintain service excellence and resilience across the forwarding network while ensuring competitiveness in rates, transit times, and customer responsiveness.
• Lead business improvement initiatives to simplify processes, strengthen controls, improve visibility, and raise productivity across commercial and operational functions.
• Drive transformation in areas such as digital forwarding, performance dashboards, shipment visibility, pricing governance, job costing discipline, and exception management.
• Implement performance measurement frameworks that track revenue growth, gross profit, yield, billing timeliness, collections, DSO, productivity, service quality, and customer retention.
• Improve the effectiveness of the commercial and operational interface to ensure faster quotation turnaround, better conversion, smoother execution, and stronger customer experience.
• Identify structural opportunities to improve business performance, including trade lane prioritization, customer profitability management, vendor consolidation, and operating model enhancement.
• Strengthen governance, risk management, and compliance processes within Freight Forwarding operations to protect profitability and reduce operational and financial leakage.
• Lead and develop the Freight Forwarding organization, including commercial, customer service, operations, customs clearance, and support teams.
• Build a high-performance culture centered on accountability, customer focus, commercial discipline, execution quality, and continuous improvement.
• Develop organizational capability through coaching, succession planning, performance management, and Omanization initiatives.
• Set clear performance expectations for revenue generation, profitability, billing discipline, collections support, operational delivery, and customer satisfaction.
• Promote cross-functional collaboration with finance, procurement, HR, IT, QHSE, and other business units to ensure strong business execution.
• Champion ethical leadership, safety, compliance, and professional standards across the Freight Forwarding business.

Minimum Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Logistics, Business, or related field.
• Preferred: Master’s degree or MBA with focus on Supply Chain/Operations.
• Professional certifications in logistics/supply chain (e.g., CSCP, FIATA, CILT) are an advantage.
• Minimum 10 years in logistics and supply chain, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role.
• Proven track record in freight forwarding, warehousing, and transport operations with full P&L responsibility.
• Experience in developing and executing large-scale logistics strategies and transformation projects.

Strong understanding of GCC and international logistics markets, compliance, and trade regulations.

Job Specific Skills:

• Freight Forwarding Management across Air, Sea, Road Freight, and Customs Clearance
• P&L and Financial Management
• Commercial Leadership and Business Development
• Margin Management, Pricing Discipline, Billing, Collections, and Working Capital Control
• Operational Excellence and Cost Optimization
• Customs, Trade Compliance, and Regulatory Management
• Strategic Partnerships and Carrier / Agent Network Management
• Business Improvement and Digital Transformation
• Strong leadership and people management skills
• Strong commercial drive and financial acumen
• Strategic and results-oriented mindset
• Excellent communication, influencing, and negotiation skills
• High resilience and adaptability in a dynamic market
• Strong ownership, accountability, and execution focus

Collaborative, ethical, and performance-driven leadership style