Manager Domestic Transportation

Position Summary

The Manager of Transportation Operations will lead all aspects of truck-based brokerage operations across Drayage, Full Truckload (FTL), and Less-than-Truckload (LTL) services. This role is responsible for developing and executing procurement strategies, managing carrier/vendor relationships, improving operational processes and systems, and driving profitable growth through accurate and competitive transportation pricing.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Transportation Procurement & Carrier Strategy
- Lead all procurement activities for drayage, FTL, and LTL brokerage services.
- Build and maintain a high-performing carrier network, expand portfolio with national and regional carriers.
- Negotiate rates, contracts, service levels, and incentives.
- Monitor market trends to adjust procurement strategies.

2. Carrier & Vendor Management
- Develop strong partnerships with strategic carriers to ensure market relevant pricing and needed capacity across all modes and geographies.
- Build executive relationships with top carriers to co-innovate on product design and IOPs
- Establish carrier scorecards, KPIs, and compliance processes to communicate clear expectations and set the baseline for productive performance reviews.
- Ensure carriers meet safety, insurance, and service standards.
- Lead resolution of complex service issues and high impact escalations.

3. Market Intelligence & Rate Strategy
- Track and interpret market conditions across drayage, FTL, and LTL.
- Leverage data sources to guide procurement and pricing decisions.
- Maintain a market intelligence dashboard.
- Adjust buy and sell rates based on market dynamics.
- Provide regular market updates to leadership and internal teams.

4. Operational Excellence & Continuous Improvement
- Develop leading indicators, KPIs and dashboards for business performance.
- Collaborate with Product, IT, and Operations teams to enhance workflow, systems, reporting, and process efficiency.
- Enable end to end visibility of related milestones within customer interfaces
- Identify/implement automation opportunities in operations and commercial processes.
- Develop both customer and internal SOPs for transportation operations.

5. Pricing, Quotations & Profitability Management
- Oversee all customer quotations, bids, and RFQs.
- Partner with commercial on transportation solutions, packaging and go-to-market plans
- Ensure pricing models reflect market conditions and margin targets.
- Monitor lane-level profitability and adjust strategy as needed to meet targets.

6. Leadership & Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Build and mentor a high-performing transportation product and operations team, embedding a culture of continuous learning, collaboration and data driven decision making.
- Serve as subject matter expert across all transport modes to elevate our commercial strategy and enhance our service offering.
- Partner with Sales, Operations, Finance, and Product teams to deliver company objectives around customer experience, growth and profitability.

Qualifications:

Required:
- 8+ years of transportation or brokerage experience.
- 3+ years in a senior leadership role.
- Strong carrier procurement and negotiation background.
- Expertise in transportation pricing and margin management.
- Experience utilizing market data in procurement and pricing.
- Familiarity with TMS systems and brokerage workflows.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
- Demonstrated success in vendor management and team leadership.

Preferred:
- Experience in a mid-size or large 3PL.
- Knowledge of international or port-related operations.
- Familiarity with EDI/API integrations or digital brokerage tools.
- Bachelor’s degree preferred but not required.

Core Competencies:
- Strategic procurement & negotiation
- Market intelligence & analytics
- Operational excellence & process improvement
- Vendor/carrier relationship management
- Pricing & financial acumen
- Leadership & talent development
- Customer communication
- Data-driven decision making
- Change management