COMPANY INFORMATION
Our client is an established 37-year-old international freight forwarding, customs brokerage, and third-party logistics organization serving mid-market companies across a variety of industries.The organization has approximately 45 team members globally, including 18 U.S.-based employees and more than 25 dedicated full-time offshore team members.
The company's mission is to “Make the world smaller for our customers” by helping businesses navigate international shipping, customs, trade compliance, and logistics.
Approximately 90% of current new-business activity is centered around customs brokerage and trade compliance. The company increasingly uses these services as an entry point to establish new customer relationships and subsequently expand into its broader portfolio of freight and logistics solutions.
The company uses technology as part of its client experience, including Captain, a white-labeled platform configured for the business, and Atlas TMS for routing, carrier management, freight auditing, and related functions.
The organization operates with an entrepreneurial, relationship-driven culture where employees are expected to collaborate, take ownership, ask questions, and move opportunities forward.
POSITION OVERVIEW
The Senior Account Executive is a full-cycle, individual-contributor sales role focused primarily on new-logo acquisition and business development.
This is a hunter role, not a traditional account-management position.
The Senior Account Executive will be responsible for developing new business through relationships, referrals, networking, outbound prospecting, and other channels while managing opportunities from initial conversation through discovery, solution development, negotiation, and close.
The organization is experiencing significant momentum around customs brokerage and trade compliance, creating an opportunity for an experienced consultative salesperson to join during a strong period of market demand.
The ideal candidate brings strong B2B sales fundamentals and can sell complex services through discovery, problem-solving, relationship development, and business-value conversations rather than relying exclusively on product demonstrations or brand recognition.
Once a new customer is won, a dedicated client-management team takes responsibility for much of the day-to-day servicing of the account. The Account Executive remains strategically connected to the relationship while continuing to benefit from the company's recurring commission model. This structure makes collaboration and the ability to successfully transition accounts particularly important.
Typical sales cycles for the target segment are approximately 60–90 days, with target AE opportunities generally representing approximately $50K–$75K in annual net revenue.
CORE VALUES
- Get Things Done — Most Important for This Role
- Collaboration
- Curiosity
- Accountability & Ownership
- Integrity
ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS
Own & Build the Pipeline
- Own the full new-business sales cycle from prospecting through close.
- Generate pipeline through networking, referrals, outbound prospecting, events, strategic relationships, and other channels.
- Develop relationships with senior decision-makers and key stakeholders.
- Convert qualified referrals and opportunities generated through the company's existing network.
- Conduct cold outreach when appropriate.
- Maintain accurate CRM records, pipeline stages, forecasts, and next steps.
- Consistently create forward movement rather than waiting for opportunities to develop independently.
Lead Consultative Discovery
- Understand how prospective customers currently manage shipping, customs, and trade compliance.
- Identify operational, financial, compliance, tariff, service, and logistics challenges.
- Ask strong discovery questions to uncover both stated and underlying customer needs.
- Learn relevant industry concepts including shipping modes, lanes, Incoterms, customs brokerage, tariffs, and trade compliance.
- Translate complex issues into clear business recommendations.
- Build credibility with both executive and operational stakeholders.
Develop & Close Solutions
- Collaborate with internal subject-matter experts, operations, customs, client management, and leadership.
- Develop tailored solutions and pricing.
- Present recommendations clearly to prospective customers.
- Create mutual action plans and establish clear next steps.
- Navigate objections and negotiations.
- Coordinate multiple internal and external stakeholders.
- Drive opportunities through signature.
Grow Relationships
- Develop long-term relationships that can generate repeat business and referrals.
- Identify opportunities to expand initial customs/trade-compliance relationships into additional logistics and freight services.
- Successfully transition won accounts to the client-management team.
- Remain strategically connected without unnecessarily controlling day-to-day account management.
Represent the Organization
- Attend prospect meetings, networking events, conferences, and industry gatherings.
- Build relationships throughout the tri-state market.
- Travel to meet prospects when an opportunity warrants in-person engagement.
- Represent the organization with professionalism, integrity, and strong interpersonal judgment.
BACKGROUND
The ideal candidate brings 5+ years of successful B2B sales experience, preferably within a consultative or complex services environment.
Direct freight or logistics experience is not required.
The company is intentionally open to strong sellers from industries such as:
- B2B professional services
- Business/financial services
- Trade or compliance services
- Freight technology / supply-chain technology
- B2B SaaS with consultative sales cycles
- Payroll/HCM
- Payments/FinTech
- Commercial services
- Telecom/managed services
- Logistics/freight
Experience within an organization known for rigorous sales training can be particularly valuable. Such as Xerox, Cintas, ADP, and Paychex as potentially relevant talent sources.
MUST HAVES
- 5+ years of B2B sales experience.
- Demonstrated hunter / new-logo acquisition experience.
- Proven experience managing a full sales cycle.
- Demonstrated ability to personally generate pipeline rather than relying exclusively on inbound leads, SDRs, or an inherited book of business.
- Strong consultative discovery and solution-selling skills.
- Formal sales training or meaningful experience working within a structured sales methodology.
- Comfortable with prospecting and cold calling.
- Strong relationship-building and executive communication skills.
- Ability to operate effectively in an entrepreneurial environment where every process may not be fully defined.
- Proactive, accountable, and able to create next steps independently.
- Ability to collaborate effectively with operations and client-management teams.
- Willingness and ability to learn customs brokerage, tariffs, trade compliance, and logistics concepts.
- Comfortable using CRM technology to manage pipeline, activity, forecasting, and next steps.
- Located within practical reach of the NY/NJ/CT/PA market and able to attend meetings in New York City.
- Willingness to travel when needed to advance or close business, including both regional and occasional cross-country travel.
- Authorized to work in the United States without current or future employer visa sponsorship.
NICE-TO-HAVE
- Existing professional network within the NY/NJ/CT/PA market.
- Customs brokerage or trade-compliance experience.
- Freight, logistics, or supply-chain experience.
- Complex B2B professional-services sales experience.
- Background with a company known for rigorous sales training.
- Sandler or comparable formal sales-methodology training.
- Experience participating in executive networking/referral organizations.
- HubSpot or comparable CRM experience.
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator experience.
- Experience using AI or modern prospecting tools.
- Experience selling within a smaller or entrepreneurial organization where the salesperson cannot rely primarily on brand recognition.
WORKING CONDITIONS
Location
- NY/NJ/CT/PA market.
- Must be within practical reach of New York City.
- Hybrid/client-facing working environment.
- During onboarding, approximately three days per week in the office may be helpful while learning the organization and building internal relationships.
- The company can provide flexibility during onboarding when distance or other commitments make that difficult.
- Longer term, the expectation will likely be at least one day per week in person for collaboration and meetings.
Schedule
- Typical working hours are approximately 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
- Flexibility is expected around prospect meetings, client needs, networking events, conferences, and travel.
Travel: should be viewed as opportunity-driven rather than based on a fixed travel quota.
The successful candidate should not be averse to travel and should be willing to go where a meaningful sales opportunity requires them to be.
This may include:
- Regular prospecting, networking, events, and customer meetings throughout the NY/NJ/CT/PA region.
- Meetings and business development activity in New York City.
- Occasional domestic air travel for prospects, customer meetings, or conferences.
- Travel across the East Coast as well as occasional trips to markets such as Seattle or Los Angeles when warranted by an opportunity.
The actual overnight requirement may vary substantially based on pipeline and prospect activity. A successful salesperson could potentially only need to fly a few times per year, translating to approximately 6–12 overnight days in some years, while more active periods or conference schedules could result in greater travel.
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS
Base Salary $90,000–$110,000
Bonus / Commission
- Recurring commission tied to ongoing client transaction/shipment volume.
- Commission continues as the customer generates business rather than functioning solely as a one-time new-business payment.
- Commission rates are structured based on client tenure and step down over time but do not completely sunset.
- The company is evaluating a potential Year 1 ramp/target bonus.
- Final commission modeling and quota expectations are being established.
On-Target Earnings
Compensation: $110,000 Base + 146-156,000 Illustrative Year 1 OTE + Uncapped Recurring Commissions.
Benefits
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- 401(k) with Safe Harbor match
- 100% match on the first 3% contributed
- 50% match on the next 2%
- Generous PTO
- Sick time
- Wellness leave
- Summer Fridays
- Volunteer time off
- Jury duty leave
- Bereavement leave
- Learning and development programs
- Approximately $50/month telecommuting stipend
- Employee anniversary and milestone recognition
- Virtual team gatherings
- Annual company-wide in-person gathering
- Additional team events and informal social opportunities
INTERVIEW PROCESS
1. Talent Harbor Interview
2. Co-CEO Interview
3. Co-CEO / Sales Team Interview
4. Potential Final Interview / Panel
A fourth conversation with the COO or broader leadership team may be included if additional evaluation is required.
At least one interview should take place in person, ideally during the later stages of the process.
Finalist Assessment
- Kolbe assessment is likely to be used for finalists as an additional data point, not as an automatic disqualifier.
- Standard background check required.