LTL Lead

Job Description

Job Description

The opportunity

Kingsgate handles about $8M in annual LTL spend, which until now has run inside our truckload operation instead of standing on its own. We are setting up a dedicated LTL desk and hiring the person to lead it. You will own the carrier relationships, the pricing, the audit and claims work, and the growth plan. The goal is to push the book past $15M, and you will have the room to design how the desk runs. On a book this size, the invoice audit and claims recovery alone should cover the cost of the role in year one. You will be our lead LTL voice with customers and the LTL side of our managed transportation programs.

What you will own

• Carrier strategy and pricing. Manage relationships with national, regional, and sub-regional LTL carriers. Negotiate and run customer-specific pricing (CSPs), FAK arrangements, and discount structures. Stay ahead of GRI exposure and keep a sensible carrier mix by lane and freight profile.

• Invoice audit and recovery. Set up a routine audit process that catches reweighs, reclassifications, and accessorial charges, and challenge them every time rather than now and then. Track what you recover and report it each quarter. Target at least 4% of spend recovered in year one.

• Claims management. Run the claims process from start to finish: filing standards and windows, carrier liability and released-value rules, documentation, holding carriers accountable, and keeping customers in the loop. Clear the current backlog and set the standard going forward.

• Quoting and margin protection. Set the quoting standards for classification, density, and accessorial accuracy so margin holds up at the quote instead of getting patched after the invoice. Coach the desk toward invoice variance of 3% or less.

• Customer analytics. Lead LTL business reviews the Kingsgate way, breaking cost-per-pound changes into rate versus mix so customers can see lane inflation apart from shifts in their own freight profile.

• Growth. Work with Sales to find LTL spend hiding inside our current truckload and managed transportation accounts, and build the plan to grow the book from $8M to more than $15M.

• Team leadership. Hire, train, and develop LTL Operations Specialists as the desk grows, and write down SOPs so the work does not live only in people's heads.

• Account Management. Daily oversight on one of our largest LTL accounts – monitoring for exceptions – communicating with the customer and stepping in as neccessary

Requirements

Required

• 3+ years of LTL-specific experience in carrier pricing, carrier account management, or 3PL LTL operations. LTL needs to be your main line of work, not a mode you have dabbled in.

• A real track record negotiating LTL pricing (CSPs, FAK, discount structures) directly with carriers, plus a working sense of how carrier pricing teams size up a book of business.

• A solid grip on NMFC classification, density-based rating, dimensional accuracy, and accessorial structures, and the ability to look at an invoice and find where the money is leaking.

• Hands-on claims experience: carrier liability limits, released versus full value, concealed-damage rules, filing windows, and a history of actually recovering money.

• Strong analytical chops: comfortable building carrier-mix and cost-breakdown analyses in Excel and walking a customer through them.

• Proof that you have built something, whether a process, a desk, or a program, rather than only running one that was already in place.

Preferred

• Time on the carrier side in LTL pricing or national accounts (a national or strong regional carrier, for example), on top of brokerage or 3PL experience.

• Familiarity with the Midwest LTL carrier landscape, including the regional carriers that matter for a Cincinnati-area freight base.

• Experience working in a TMS (McLeod or something similar) and with LTL rating engines and APIs.

• Some exposure to managed transportation programs and running quarterly business reviews.

Benefits

ESOP ownership stake, health/dental/vision, 401(k), PTO