Job Description - General Manager (NAVI Mumbai Headquarters)

Location: Navi Mumbai, India

Department: Global Freight Forwarding & End-to-End Logistics

Level: Senior Leadership (GM / Senior GM)

Compensation: Competitive, based on experience

Travel Requirement: Domestic and International (as needed)

Role Overview

The General Manager for the Mumbai Headquarters will oversee an established high volume freight forwarding region, ensuring operational excellence, team leadership, and commercial growth. This leader will be responsible for refining the existing setup, strengthening cross-functional coordination, enhancing service reliability, and driving continuous improvement across processes, people, and systems.

Unlike a ground up build, this role requires elevating an already functioning region putting structure, implementing corporate governance, streamlining workflows, strengthening customer/vendor relationships, and preparing the organization for scalable global expansion.

Key Responsibilities

1. Regional Leadership & Business Management

- Lead and manage all freight forwarding operations for the Mumbai HQ across air, ocean, customs, transportation, and end-to-end logistics solutions.

- Drive operational discipline, cost optimization, and service reliability across departments.

- Ensure seamless coordination with global offices, overseas partners, carriers, and key vendors.

2. Team Management & Organizational Development

- Lead a multi-functional regional team across sales, operations, pricing, customer service, and documentation.

- Assess current org structure and implement a corporate level framework for people, processes, and standard operating procedures (SOPs).

- Build a strong leadership bench through training, mentorship, and performance management.

- Foster a culture of accountability, operational excellence, and continuous improvement.

3. P&L Ownership & Commercial Growth

- Manage regional P&L, margins, budgeting, cost controls, and profitability initiatives.

- Drive business expansion through strategic sales initiatives, new vertical development, and enhanced wallet share from existing clients.

- Strengthen key customer relationships and support major account escalations or commercial negotiations.

4. Operational Excellence & Compliance

- Improve end-to-end process flows across quoting, booking, execution, billing, and customer communication.

- Implement quality standards, audit processes, and compliance measures in line with local and global policies.

- Work closely with ERP (ShipThis) teams to improve system adoption, data accuracy, automation, and reporting discipline.

5. Vendor & Partner Management

- Build and maintain strong relationships with carriers, consolidators, trucking companies, customs brokers, and other key vendors.

- Negotiate competitive rates, optimize service reliability, and ensure strong vendor SLAs.

6. Strategic Initiatives & Transformation

- Evaluate existing workflows and implement structural improvements to support scalability.

- Drive and support digitization initiatives across documentation, reporting, pricing automation, and operational dashboards.

- Collaborate with leadership to roll out corporate initiatives across India, Southeast Asia, and US/Canada offices.

Required Skills & Experience

- 10 - 15+ years in freight forwarding, logistics, or supply chain management.

- Proven leadership experience in a mid to large freight forwarding organization.

- Strong understanding of air & ocean freight, customs clearance, transportation, and 3PL operations.

- Experience managing P&L, budgets, and commercial strategy.

- Deep vendor network across carriers, consolidators and transportation partners.

- Strong negotiation, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

- Ability to lead large teams, build structure, manage performance and drive transformation initiatives at scale.

- Proficient with ERP systems and data driven decision making.

- Fluency in English and Hindi; additional regional languages preferred.

Preferred Qualifications

- Bachelor's degree in business, Logistics, or Supply Chain Management

- MBA or industry certifications preferred

- Experience working with multinational freight forwarding companies or global logistics environments.

- Exposure to corporate governance, compliance, SOP rollout, and audit frameworks.

- Strong customer facing background with experience supporting key accounts and enterprise clients.