Senior Global Operations Associate, EMEA, Flexport.org - Africa Focus

The opportunity:

The role of the Senior Global Operations Associate is a critical part of making Flexport.org’s mission to make shipping humanitarian aid easy for everyone a reality. Flexport.org delivers millions of kilos of aid    to more than 75 countries annually. In this role, your direct customers are the partners within your region: our account management and customs teams, subcontractors, carriers, terminals and trucking providers. Your work directly supports Flexport.org’s humanitarian customers in achieving their logistics goals. Most importantly, you will play a pivotal role in building the next operational model at Flexport.org: allowing us to effectively scale to achieve our mission of making global aid easier for everyone.

This role is designed to build your hard operational skills and leadership capabilities as part of a unique team dedicated to moving life-saving humanitarian cargo to hard-to-reach places in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Our team delivers aid all over the world, with a substantial volume footprint in the many landlocked countries of Africa. Our expertise in this region is a differentiator to our customers, and we’re looking for a candidate who is excited to take on this challenge by acting as advisor to our customers, and shepherding shipments through the complex documentation and delivery processes each country requires while working with our local partners on the ground. 

Tactical Responsibilities:

As a Senior Operations Associate you are an expert in executing the end-to-end movement of shipments within a regional/global network for Ocean imports and exports.

• You will act as the key team member responsible for oversight of our partner-managed regions in EMEA. 
• You will use metrics to improve and deliver great performance, including data quality and shipment milestone timeliness. You will make a great contribution as a senior expert to your team by meeting internal KPIs and SLAs that deliver a high quality experience to our customers.
• You will oversee the “front line” in ensuring the highest standard of Flexport quality: shipments move “on-time” and exceptions are handled appropriately.
• You will build scalable operational infrastructure and procedures to ensure they are delivering the highest levels of efficiency and productivity for your customers. If they are not, you will look for opportunities to improve them.
• You will:
• Serve as the day-to-day relationship focal for internal and external partners such as terminals, carriers, and warehouses, the Customs team and the Ocean Operations team. You will oversee day-to-day operations with these partners and act as the primary point of contact for internal and external escalations.
• Analyze data to rate subcontractor/partner performance. Your analysis will inform subcontractor/partner performance management initiatives, and you’ll lead the effort with procurement to improve performance.

Adaptive Responsibilities:

• You will analyze data to rate vendor (e.g. carrier, trucker) performance and inform performance management initiatives.
• You will help design, build and implement operational infrastructure and procedures in the day-to-day workflow, while constantly identifying and executing on opportunities to realize optimal efficiency and productivity.
• You will empower Account Management by leading feedback loops to ensure client needs are met.
• You will use metrics to spot opportunities to improve and deliver great performance in your team, including data quality and shipment milestone timeliness.
• You will act as a consultant to your regional team, product & engineering and the operations excellence team.

Scope of Duties:

Point of contact with Shippers

• Ready-to-ship gatekeeper; Ensure FFA as one source of truth with most up-to-date paperwork and data provided by shipper, following DG, air compliance & export control policy
• Shipment life-line creator; Create schedule for all shipments, setting expectation to all stakeholders and define when to report exceptions/discrepancy
• Shipment life-line executioner/monitor; Follow up on shipment status as per plan and report actual milestone; 
• Fire-fighter; Report any exceptions and activate recovery plan to salvage service commitment if needed
• Neurons of the Global Network; 1st escalation point of all operations incident, coordinate and adjust operation plan in case of incident reported from overseas. 

What you will need:

• BA/BS degree
• Minimum 5 years of experience in logistics, freight forwarding

Mindset:

• Passion for humanitarian impact and helping people impacted by crises
• Desire to “build a better machine” and get irritated when things aren’t optimal
• Hands-on, process-oriented, structured thinking with strong problem-solving capabilities 
• Strategic vision and ground floor execution
• Excitement to manage vendor relations and create best-in-class, innovative structures to do so
• Excellent communication, interpersonal and organizational skills
• A client service mindset; you are obsessed with client and squad happiness
• Courage to challenge the status quo when logic and reason require it. See something broken? Fix it!

Skills:

• Optimizing processes analytically
• Pressure testing qualitative work
• Building feedback loops for a product or service
• Problem Solving: Building consensus among people with strong differing opinions
• Managing time and commitments
• Building and using your work process
• Generating ideas through data
• Forming hypothesis and developing experiments
• Framing problems
• Investigating and troubleshooting the customer’s problem
• Execute complex processes without missing adaptive opportunities
• Applying policy, process, and best practices
• Solving problems through hypothesis-based root cause analysis
• Execute complex processes without missing adaptive opportunities

What's in there for you: 

• An opportunity to contribute to one of the fastest-growing companies, where you’ll have the chance to create a global impact while being a part of a  thriving multinational environment 
• Daily catered lunches incl. vegetarian options, breakfast, snacks and soft drinks available in our office on daily basis 
• Commute expenses: Flexport will cover  home-office commuting costs for employees living outside of Amsterdam
• 25 working days as vacation days based on full time employment.
• Health insurance: Flexport offers a collective health insurance plan including a basic package and any available additional packages. Your monthly premium is fully paid by Flexport. 
• A defined pension contribution scheme
• Equity program: every team member becomes a shareholder, aligning our success with yours. As a private company in a multi-trillion dollar industry, you have a direct stake in our collective growth and success.
• Employee Assistance Program through Aetna Resources for Living: Flexport provides an employer-sponsored program at no cost to you and your household members
• Parental leave benefit: Flexport is here to support you and your families in one of the most important times in life – the birth of a child! Our parental leave program allows both mothers and partners to take time off from work for pregnancy, childbirth, and to bond with your new child.