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.