General Manager Commercial, Freight Forwarding

General Manager Commercial, Freight Forwarding

Cambridgeshire or the North West | £60,000 to £75,000 base, plus an uncapped quarterly bonus and long term incentive on branch EBIT | On target earnings well into six figures

The operation works. The rates are competitive. The service is measurably better than most of the market, and there is proof rather than assertion behind that claim.

What is missing is somebody to go and get the business.

The organisation

A freight forwarding business within an established, privately owned and profitable logistics group. The group has traded for well over a century, is conservatively financed, and operates accredited warehousing, storage and United Kingdom distribution alongside the freight business. The forwarding operation is comparatively new within the group and has been built deliberately, with real customs expertise and strong carrier and agency relationships already in place.

The proposition you will be selling

This matters more than it usually does, because it is genuinely differentiated.

The group is a haulier at heart, and that changes how it thinks about freight. A container can travel twelve thousand miles and still lose money in the final fifty, and this business understands that better than most forwarders because road freight is where it came from. It knows where unexpected cost appears, and it designs the movement to avoid it.

On time delivery is actively measured and reviewed every week. Where a movement runs late, the reason is investigated and engineered out rather than explained away. Very few forwarders can say that, and fewer still can prove it. Behind the freight sits accredited warehousing and United Kingdom distribution within the same group, which means you can sell a genuine end to end solution from origin through to final mile rather than a freight rate with somebody else's problem attached at the end.

The role and its remit

This is a branch to build rather than a book to inherit, and that needs saying plainly. You will be the individual contributor from day one. You will hunt, you will win business personally, and you will build and coach a team around you as the branch grows into something larger.

You will own branch gross margin and operating profit, along with pricing and quotation discipline, protecting margin while remaining competitive in a market where it is always tempting to buy the business.

You will build and work a structured map of decision makers within target organisations rather than relying on a contact list, developing more than one route into each business you pursue. You will build a credible pipeline and report on it honestly, and you will coach the existing team to convert their own opportunities while carrying your own number.

As the branch develops, so does the remit. Expansion beyond Manchester is envisaged over time, and the person who builds this branch successfully is the natural candidate to shape what comes next.

The person we are looking for

You are an out and out hunter working in freight forwarding today. You have an established network of decision makers across the region, you know who controls freight in the businesses that matter, and ideally you have a following you could bring with you.

You have built a branch commercially, whether by opening one or by growing an existing one, and you understand the difference between managing a branch and building one. You know ocean and road freight properly, and you have enough understanding of air freight and customs to be credible in front of an importer who asks a difficult question.

Crucially, you can describe how you sell. Strategic account mapping, multiple routes into a target, a repeatable method rather than a list of people you happen to know. That is what we will explore at interview, and it is what separates the candidates who build branches from the candidates who maintain them.

Track record

We are looking for a demonstrable and recent record of winning freight forwarding business, built consistently over at least two to three years rather than one exceptional year. Be ready to talk about the accounts you have won, how you found them, how long they took, what you did when the obvious route in was closed, and what those accounts are worth today. Growth within existing customers matters as much as new logos, because share of wallet is where forwarding margin is often made.

Personality and fit

This is a business that moves quickly and decides in the room. The owner is accessible and involved, and the group has a long-standing culture built on service, straight dealing and doing what was promised. That culture matters as much in freight as it does in the warehouse, and you will be expected to reflect it.

You will operate at a distance from head office with limited day to day supervision, so self-direction is essential. You will also need to be comfortable in a branch that is still being built, where infrastructure is developing and where the answer is sometimes that you work it out yourself.

If your first question is which accounts you will be given, this is not your role, and the process will find that out.

The reward, and why it is structured this way

The base is £60,000 to £75,000 and it is pitched deliberately. The money in this role sits in the performance element, which is where it should sit for somebody who wants to build something.

You will receive a quarterly bonus of fifteen per cent of branch EBIT; paid as it is earned. Alongside that sits a long-term incentive of a further ten per cent of branch EBIT, accumulated and paid as a lump sum after ten years, with a review point at five years. Both are uncapped. Build this branch and you will be paid properly for it, and you will keep being paid for it for years.

Car or car allowance, private health insurance and pension sit alongside.

Where you would be based

This is the part that has recently changed, and it opens the role up considerably.

The appointment can be based at the group headquarters near Cambridge, or in the North West. Whichever suits the right person. If you have built a book across the East of England, the Home Counties or the South East, working the gateways at Heathrow, Stansted, Luton, Birmingham or East Midlands, the rail freight terminal at Daventry, or the ports at Felixstowe, London Gateway and Tilbury, that experience is directly relevant and the location is no longer an obstacle.

It is office and field based rather than hybrid, and the reason is straightforward. Part of the job is building and leading a team, and that cannot be done from home. When you are in, you are with the team and getting deals over the line. When you are out, you are in front of customers.

The process and how to apply

Apply with your CV. We will brief you fully on the business, the group and the opportunity before anything is shared with our client. Second stage involves a short presentation on how you would grow the branch, which is your opportunity to show exactly how you work