Account Manager

About Ardent Ardent Global Logistics is an international freight forwarding and customs brokerage company headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia. We move ocean and air freight, clear customs, and handle the trade compliance work behind both for small and mid-sized importers and exporters; the companies the largest forwarders tend to overlook.
Our mission is to enable our customers' business by doing common things in an uncommon way, benefiting everyone we serve.
That sentence is not wall art. We open every Monday morning meeting by reading it out loud, naming one of our culture values, and sharing wins from the week before. The last section of this description explains how we actually work; it matters as much as the bullets above it.

Position Summary

The Account Manager owns a portfolio of Ardent accounts operationally and commercially. You are the person the customer calls, and the person Pricing, Operations, and Customs look to for the answer on what that customer expects. You keep rates current, quotes moving, SOPs accurate, and service consistent; and when something goes sideways, you are the one who gets in front of it before the customer has to ask.
This is not a pure sales role and it is not a service desk. You will exercise independent judgment on live accounts and you will execute detailed, process-driven work with your own hands. The people who do well here are comfortable doing both in the same day.

What You Will Own

Account ownership and relationships

• Serve as the primary point of contact for an assigned portfolio of accounts, owning day-to-day communication and the quality of every response
• Build relationships at multiple levels and across functions inside each account, not only the person who books the freight; map those contacts and keep the map current
• Act as the customer's internal advocate at Ardent, making sure the right people and resources are pointed at their shipments
• Run proactive outreach: scheduled check-ins, satisfaction monitoring, and a call placed before the customer has a reason to make one
• Support onboarding and implementation for new accounts, from account setup and compliance through the first shipment

Pricing, quoting, and account growth

• Assist with pricing on key accounts; keep rates current and accurate, and make sure they are communicated to Operations and to the customer
• Support the quote-to-booking process end to end, following up on outstanding quotations to gain feedback and close the loop on every quote, won or lost
• Bring pricing options and recommendations to account leadership with the analysis behind them
• Identify opportunities to expand existing accounts into additional services and modes: ocean, air, customs brokerage, drayage, First Sale valuation, and duty recovery
• Identify at-risk accounts early and escalate them with a plan attached, not just a warning

Operational execution and SOP integrity

• Spot-check shipments for SOP compliance; flag recurring customer issues and gaps in the SOPs themselves
• Work with the Customer Experience team to write, maintain, and update customer SOPs and internal documentation so that what we promised is what we do
• Collaborate across Pricing, Operations, Imports, Exports, and Customs to resolve issues and protect service quality
• Maintain and update the preferred agent database so origin partner selection is a decision rather than a guess
• Keep account activity, contacts, and opportunities documented accurately and consistently in GoFreight and HubSpot

Performance, reporting, and business reviews

• Establish and monitor service standards and KPIs with assigned accounts
• Prepare and support quarterly business reviews and other customer-facing materials
• Monitor service quality, identify trends, and bring them to management review with root cause attached, not just symptoms
• Maintain customer success stories for commercial use
• Contribute to continuous improvement and automation initiatives alongside Operations

The First 90 Days

• Days 1 to 30: Learn the accounts, the SOPs, and GoFreight. Join the daily operations huddle and the Monday morning meeting. Meet every internal stakeholder who touches your portfolio.
• Days 31 to 60: Own day-to-day communication for your accounts. Audit the SOPs for your top accounts and correct what is out of date. Take over quote follow-up.
• Days 61 to 90: Run your first customer business review. Present a service-trend read on your portfolio with at least two process fixes you intend to drive.

How Success Is Measured

• Retention and overall health of the assigned portfolio
• Revenue and margin growth inside existing accounts
• Quote follow-up discipline and conversion rate
• SOP accuracy and compliance on audited shipments
• Speed and quality of response when an exception hits
• Customer feedback captured in business reviews and check-ins

Who You Are

• Proactive and decisive. You make the call and you own it.
• Reliable in the way we mean it internally: you do what you say and you say what you do.
• Analytical and direct. You communicate plainly, with the data in hand.
• Comfortable working independently for long stretches, and able to shift into relationship mode when an account needs a person rather than an email.
• Detail-oriented inside a structured, repeatable process. You would rather follow a good SOP than reinvent one every week.
• Composed when priorities shift. Tariffs move, sailings get blanked, rates spike overnight. We ride the roller coaster; we do not build the tracks.
• Quick to raise your hand when something breaks, including when you are the one who broke it.

Qualifications

Required

• 2+ years of account management or customer experience within international logistics, or equivalent freight forwarding operations experience
• Working knowledge of ocean and air import and export processes and documentation
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with an analytical and direct style
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office, Excel in particular
• Ability to work effectively on a fully remote team spanning multiple time zones

Preferred

• Customs brokerage exposure; familiarity with entry filing, HTS classification, and trade compliance fundamentals
• TMS experience; GoFreight strongly preferred
• CRM experience; HubSpot preferred
• Familiarity with First Sale valuation, Section 301, or duty recovery work
• Experience preparing and presenting quarterly business reviews
• Knowledge of transportation and logistics market trends

Work Environment

Ardent is a distributed team. This is a fast-paced role with frequent interaction across internal departments and customers, in a market that changes without warning. The ability to stay composed through shifting priorities and competing demands is central to success in this position.

How We Work

Our culture is a weekly practice, not a poster. Every Monday morning the whole company gets on one call. Someone reads the mission statement and says what it means to them. Someone names a culture value and does the same. Then we share wins, business and personal. Every day, operations huddles to surface whatever is urgent.
These are the values you will hear named on those calls:

• Customer focused. We do not prove our value when every shipment goes perfectly; a customer could book that themselves. We prove it when something goes wrong and we answer with speed, transparency, and a plan.
• One team. If you see something, say something, even when it is not your department. We are remote, and communication is the thing holding the parts together.
• Ownership. Mistakes happen. Investigate, find the root cause, say so early and often, and make sure it does not happen twice.
• Reliable. Do what you say and say what you do. Someone else's livelihood is inside every shipment we touch.
• Win and celebrate wins. We stop and say so out loud, every week.
• One percent better every day. Control what you can control, and improve it.

 

What we handle is a small link in a long chain, and it is not a small thing. Very little reaches a shelf without it. We take that seriously, and we would like you to as well.