Position: Director, Commercial Solutions Development

Job Description:

Forward Air is seeking a Director, Solutions Development, to ensure our ability to profitably build, price, market and execute (shipment life cycle) our core services. This position works closely with Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Enablement, Pricing, Engineering, Operations, Legal, IT Finance and Human Resources. The outcome of this role is to drive and further enable profitable growth, service delivery, customer experience and overall scale of our services. We believe this can be best accomplished through our people, defined and rigorous processes, and the innovative use of technology and data. The Director, Solutions Development, is responsible to build and support that environment and embody Forwards leadership imperatives.

Core Responsibilities & Duties:

• Collaborate and build a solutions development roadmap and actionable plans to integrate into and progressively elevate our ability to profitably grow in our core offerings.

• Gather and prioritize requirements for the products, defining the vision/scope for the products, and collaborating with marketing, sales & service, engineering and operations, legal, finance, IT and human resources to ensure that the financial and customer value goals are met

• ROI Planning aligned with roadmap to offset investment in development costs with incremental revenue increase or cost mitigation.

• Evaluate and communicate the market demand for service, understand and communicate service competitors, technology trends, pricing, and market shifts

• Partner with Sales, Operations and Finance to structure and review new business opportunities, and implement standard tools and metrics in the deal review process, ensuring that financial metrics (margins, growth, returns, ) in complex deals are appropriately and consistently understood by business partners

• Manage the team to drive commercial workflow efficiency and rigor to execute with excellence and build scalable services:

• Set and manage overall objectives, performance expectations and goals

• Build clarity and understanding of roles and responsibilities, performance expectations and the leadership communication cadence to inspire, develop and manage performance

• Maintain high level of accuracy and speed, and balance volume and CM

• Create individual and team actionable metrics to gain insights and trends as well as evaluate performance

• Recognize progress and celebrate positive results

• Ensure compliance with company policies and local, regional, and federal regulations

• Collaborate with onboarding teams to ensure value delivery and positive customer experience.

• Bring excellence and best practices forward to drive a value-based customer experience that creates satisfied customers that partner for sustained growth

• Build meaningful communication cadence for the business, team, and individual

• Actively collaborate with executives on company strategies and innovation

• Perform any other related duties as required or assigned

  Qualifications:

• Minimum 10 years in business development/Marketing/Sales/Pre-Sales

• Experience in transportation, distribution or manufacturing

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills

• Extensive knowledge about sales enablement tools & technology

• Experience in system implementations and driving automation

• Strong interpersonal and team building skills and ability to manage relationships throughout the company

• Ability to independently manage multiple projects from conception to completion in a fast-paced, team environment

  Skills:

• Ideal candidate will possess a “can do” attitude with a “will do” work ethic

• Interpersonal skills necessary to build effective working relationships with employees at all levels of the organization

• Strong organization, prioritization, project management and consulting skill set

• Strong work ethic, high integrity

• Excellent communication skills

  Forward Air is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

About Us

Since 1990, Forward Air has been a leading provider of ground transportation and related logistics services to the North American air freight and expedited LTL market. We offer surface shipping on an accelerated “time-definite” basis, delivering cargo at a specific time, but under less time-sensitive situations – supplying you with a cost effective, reliable alternative to air transportation. We work with companies of all sizes to develop tangible advantages and build the best products to meet your specific needs. Forward Air presents to the wholesale transportation community (logistics companies, freight forwarders, integrated air cargo carriers, passenger/ cargo airlines, and non-traditional shippers), a single-source provider that can deliver more supply chain services and a superior menu of choices. Throughout the years we have added supplementary lines to our linehaul service, such as full truckload operations (Truckload Services), final-mile coverage (Complete® Cartage), and an Airline Logistics program, and we will continue to expand our services to meet the changing needs and growth of our customer base.

Forward Air is structured to optimize both savings and service to our customers. Direct partnerships with owner-operators and other surface transportation providers, enable us to remain cost-competitive. The Forward Air network is designed with over 90 facilities located at or near major U.S. and Canadian airports, 12 regional sort centers and over 300 beyond points (secondary airports provided through our Complete Cartage service), creating one of the most comprehensive linehaul networks in the industry.

Ranked 3rd in Newsweeks 2022 "Americas Most Trustworthy Companies (https://www.newsweek.com/americas-most-trustworthy-companies-2022/transport-logistics-packaging) " publication

About the Team