Director of Air Freight Control Tower - Engineering & Manufacturing

Job Title: Director of Air Freight Control Tower – Engineering & Manufacturing Job Location: Peoria or Chicago, Illinois Job Purpose Lead the NORAM Air Freight Control Tower for Engineering & Manufacturing customers, ensuring consistent execution, visibility, and service quality across complex and time-critical supply chains. Direct regional governance, customer performance, escalations, operational improvement, and team development while aligning control tower delivery with global standards and commercial priorities. Key Responsibilities Control Tower Leadership: Set the NORAM strategy, governance, operating standards, and capability roadmap for Engineering & Manufacturing air freight control towers. Service Execution: Ensure reliable end-to-end air freight execution, milestone visibility, exception management, and delivery performance for complex, production-critical shipments. Customer Governance: Lead performance reviews, customer health assessments, service-risk management, and improvement plans for strategic and multinational accounts. Escalations & Recovery: Direct major escalations, contingency plans, service recovery, and corrective actions across countries, stations, gateways, and partners. Operational Excellence: Convert performance gaps and recurring failures into measurable cross-functional improvement programs. Data & Digital Performance: Strengthen EDI quality, milestone compliance, dashboards, predictive risk indicators, and adoption of digital customer solutions. People Leadership: Lead and develop control tower leaders and senior Customer Program Managers through clear goals, coaching, accountability, and succession planning. Commercial Partnership: Support strategic RFQs, solution design, renewals, and growth opportunities by validating operational feasibility, capacity, and service commitments. Voice of Customer: Translate customer feedback and sector requirements into regional operational, product, and digital priorities. Authority & Decision Making Set regional control tower priorities, governance standards, and performance expectations. Authorize escalation, recovery, alternate routing, capacity, and service-upgrade actions within approved guidelines. Assign ownership and corrective actions for customer, operational, and data-quality failures. Recommend investments, operating-model changes, and resource priorities through regional governance. Key Interfaces Engineering & Manufacturing customers and global account teams DHL Air Freight Product, Stations, Gateways, Operations, and Control Towers Sales, Pricing, Solutions Design, Country Management, and Process Excellence Carriers, ground handling, trucking, security, and compliance partners Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) On-time pickup, departure, arrival, and delivery performance Milestone and EDI timeliness, completeness, and accuracy Exception aging, recovery cycle time, and escalation closure Customer satisfaction, SQI performance, and corrective-action effectiveness Reduction in repeat incidents, service failures, and operational cost leakage Team capability, retention, succession readiness, and control tower maturity Qualifications & Experience Bachelor’s degree in Logistics, Supply Chain, Business, Operations, or a related field; advanced degree preferred. 10+ years of progressive international air freight, control tower, customer operations, or supply chain experience. Demonstrated leadership of managers, senior professionals, and complex regional or multinational customer portfolios. Strong knowledge of air freight operations, gateways, carriers, capacity, customs interfaces, trucking, and exception management. Experience supporting Engineering & Manufacturing, automotive, industrial, or other production-critical supply chains preferred. Proven ability to lead customer governance, major escalations, continuous improvement, and cross-functional change. Strong command of performance analytics, EDI and milestone quality, control tower …

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