Trade lane & Reefer Manager, Ocean freight

GEODIS; Levallois-Perret; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

GEODIS in France seeks a Trade & Reefer Manager to lead ocean freight initiatives, define trade strategy, and drive growth across key lanes. You will negotiate with carriers, optimize capacity, and collaborate with regional teams to deliver pricing and service excellence on a global scale.

The role requires 5-8 years of ocean freight experience, strong negotiation skills, and proficiency in MS Office to support performance management and tender activity.

Qualifications

• Bachelor degree or equivalent required.
• 5-8 years of experience in a global ocean forwarder or carrier network.
• Strong negotiation and procurement track record.
• Excellent MS Office and data handling skills.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement trade strategy and a master plan for volumes and revenue.
• Drive trade growth by working with countries, sales teams and customers.
• Monitor capacity, analyze performance and optimize capacity-based flows.
• Negotiate rates, capacity and service agreements with ocean carriers.
• Develop REEFER Ocean Product offerings and global solutions.
• Create SOPs and train regions for operational excellence.

Skills

Negotiation

Communication

Procurement

Project management

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

MS Outlook

Excel

PowerPoint

Job description

Our global Ocean freight team is responsible for the overall management and optimization of the ocean freight trade lane activities under their responsibilities.

This includes carrier management as well as volume growth strategies. The team is responsible for procurement, carrier relationship management, but also fostering ocean business development and yield optimization as well as development of related tools, information management and similar.

The Trade & Reefer Manager, as part of this team, is accountable for the growth and wealth of the assigned trade scope.

Location is flexible between Hamburg (GER), le Havre and Levallois-Perret (FRA).

Purpose of the department:

• Develop and maintain solid business relationships with the global ocean industry including core and trade carrier providers.
• To define and execute core carrier policy, to negotiate rates and capacity all year long, to support business growth and sustainable new customers
• To ensure regular visits in the countries and region of responsibility and ensure extensive market knowledge and trends to build a proper prediction of the market
• Ensure proper quality and competitive & strategic pricing response to tenders and opportunities.
• To monitor performance and align with regions and countries on actions

Purpose of the role:

• Trade strategy: develop the trade strategy and a master plan, including volumes and revenue. To implement and conduct the individual trade performance management and provide feedback to regional and country ocean freight directors.
• Trade growth: Actively drive growth on the trade with countries and sales. Publish Geodis Trade Tariffs on regular basis. Provide tender management with competitive selling rates. Support tender and sales with customers relations, by participating in customer meetings when required.
• Capacity planning and management: ensure sufficient capacity, analyse trade performance and capacities-based flows, carrier shares, track execution vs planning, coordinate and execute short term prioritization in case of recurring capacity shortage and in alignment with the countries.
• Procurement and subcontractor management with ocean carriers: maintain efficient procurement planning process, negotiate best possible ocean rates, capacity and service agreements.
• Develop REEFER Ocean Product and solutions dedicated to temperature Sensitive Cargo [focus on healthcare] on a global scope
• Act as point of contact for Ocean Reefer solutions to support Business Development Teams and customers opportunities
• Create Book of principals and SOP to support operational excellence, support countries training together with Business excellence team
• Implement global product strategy and SOPs supported by regions and countries [GDP / Pre Inspection / Smart devices / High Value]
• Support QBR with Carriers

Experience & Knowledge

• College degree (Bachelor) or equivalent work experience/ apprenticeship
• 5-8 years of experience working in a global ocean forwarder and carrier network
• Strong and proven carrier and customer negotiation skills
• Proven track record of managing ocean freight procurement
• Strong organizational and communication skills
• Excellent working knowledge of Microsoft Outlook, Excel, Word and PPT