Trade Lane Manager | Europe - Africa (Freight Forwarding)
Trade Lane Manager | Europe - Africa (Freight Forwarding)
About the Role
We are seeking an experienced Trade Lane Manager | Europe - Africa to support the growth and development of our Africa-focused freight forwarding business.
This role is ideally suited to a freight forwarding professional who combines strong operational expertise with a commercial mindset and has exposure to Europe-Africa trade lanes. You will act as the key link between customers, operations teams, overseas offices, and logistics partners while driving the development and performance of the trade lane.
Working closely with Operations, Sales, Product, Pricing, and international partners, you will help identify opportunities, design logistics solutions, optimize trade lane performance, and contribute to the growth of our Africa business.
Key Responsibilities
- Manage and develop the Europe-Africa trade lane across key African markets.
- Drive growth of import and export volumes through operational excellence and customer-focused solutions.
- Analyze customer supply chains and develop tailored logistics solutions.
- Coordinate closely with Operations, Sales, Product, Pricing, overseas offices, and strategic partners.
- Develop routing solutions across Ocean Freight, Air Freight, Project Logistics, and Multimodal Transport.
- Support RFQs, tenders, quotations, pricing activities, and customer proposals.
- Ensure successful operational implementation and ongoing management of customer business.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with shipping lines, airlines, agents, and logistics partners.
- Monitor trade lane performance, service quality, profitability, and volume development.
- Identify operational improvements and growth opportunities within the Europe-Africa corridor.
- Act as the internal subject matter expert for Africa-related logistics activities.
- Support customer meetings and business development initiatives where required.
- Work closely with overseas teams across Africa to ensure excellent customer service and operational execution.
Requirements
- Several years of experience within international freight forwarding.
- Strong operational background in Ocean Freight, Air Freight, Multimodal Transport, or Project Logistics.
- Exposure to Europe-Africa trade lanes through operations, trade management, pricing, procurement, routing, customer service, or business development activities.
- Understanding of African logistics markets, carrier networks, ports, trade flows, and forwarding processes.
- Experience coordinating with overseas offices, agents, carriers, and customers across international supply chains.
- Ability to develop practical and commercially viable logistics solutions.
- Commercial mindset with the ability to identify opportunities and support business growth initiatives.
- Experience supporting quotations, tenders, pricing activities, or trade lane development projects.
- Strong communication, stakeholder management, and relationship-building skills.
- Fluent German and English are mandatory.
- Willingness to travel within Europe and occasionally to African markets.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience handling import or export shipments between Europe and Africa.
- Exposure to East, West, Central, or Southern African markets.
- Established relationships with carriers, agents, or logistics partners serving African trade lanes.
- Experience within project logistics, industrial logistics, machinery, energy, mining, infrastructure, or EPC-related supply chains.
- Previous customer-facing or business development experience within freight forwarding.
FAQs
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