Ocean Planning Manager

Responsibilities

Team Leadership

• Hire, coach, and develop a 5–10 person team responsible for end-to-end planning and booking of ocean freight shipments, including imports, exports, and intermodal movements.
• Manage team performance and evaluations, guiding the team to meet OKRs and SLAs.
• Direct training and onboarding for new team members.
• Prioritize key initiatives and maintain strong team motivation.

Planning and Booking Operations

• Oversee end-to-end planning and booking across Ocean FCL and LCL imports and exports.
• Manage and optimize allocation and Shipping Order utilization.
• Design and maintain scalable operational infrastructure and procedures to improve efficiency and productivity.
• Manage the Fulfillment Management Tool (FMT) and support feature development and enhancements.

Partner and Stakeholder Management

• Manage relationships with internal and external regional partners, including ocean, intermodal, and drayage vendors, account management, ocean execution, allocation, and procurement teams.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for major carrier and client escalations.
• Maintain relationships with carriers and gateway carrier offices across sales, booking, customer service, and documentation functions.
• Collaborate with Procurement, Allocation, and ROM teams to inform carrier strategy and maximize revenue.

Strategic and Cross-Functional Contribution

• Work with gateway and global management to establish metrics and data that empower the team.
• Monitor and improve cost-to-serve while maintaining client satisfaction.
• Advise global counterparts, product and engineering, and operations excellence teams on ocean planning and booking processes.
• Recommend planning solutions for new clients and opportunities.
• Identify and execute process improvements, contributing to technology and systems development.
• Maintain high standards of operational quality and service.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree.
• 7+ years of experience in logistics, freight forwarding, supply chain, or ocean carrier operations.
• Experience leading teams in day-to-day execution and process improvement.
• Hands-on, process-oriented, structured approach with strong problem-solving skills.
• Strategic vision combined with the ability to execute at the operational level.
• Excellent communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills.
• Client-first mindset focused on client and team satisfaction.
• Willingness to challenge the status quo and drive meaningful change.
• Desire to lead, train, and develop industry talent.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience in a startup or top consulting firm.
• NVOCC pricing or procurement experience.
• Hands-on experience with major ocean trade lanes.

Compensation and Benefits

• Opportunity to build and lead a team from the ground up and shape a next-generation operational model.
• Cross-functional experience with global teams in a fast-growing environment.
• Development toward leading future team leaders.
• Opportunity to build deep expertise in supply chain management.
• Exposure to client advisory and account management, with potential to lead a team of advisors as the business grows.