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.