Regional Ocean Freight Operations Risk & Compliance Manager

Work Location:
Any location within the Asia Pacific region

Job Purpose

• As Regional Ocean Freight Operations Risk Management & Compliance Manager, you are responsible for executing, enforcing, and governing maritime regulatory compliance across all countries in the Region.
• The role ensures the Region operates compliance‑by‑design, such that non‑compliant bookings, documents, or invoices cannot be processed, and that the Region can respond to audits, questionnaires and investigations with complete, indexed, regulator‑grade evidence packs.
• This role is the regional authority for enforcing FMC / OSRA regulations, Dangerous Goods compliance, trade documentation integrity, billing transparency, agent compliance and security filing obligations, working in close coordination with Global Risk Management & Compliance.
• This position holder reports to the Regional Head of Ocean Freight Operations and functionally aligns with the Global Head of Ocean Freight Risk Management & Compliance to support DHL Global Forwarding's vision of being the undisputed leader in logistics.

Key Responsibilities

Dangerous Goods & Safety Compliance
. Enforce Dangerous Goods compliance under the IMDG Code and IMO / SOLAS
. Ensure DG declarations, documentation and processes are correct, complete, and auditable.
. Coordinate DG audits and corrective actions.

Security Filings & Trade Compliance Oversight
. Ensure compliance with applicable security filing regimes, including ISF, AMS, ENS and ICS2
. Enforce timeliness, accuracy and evidence retention.

FMC / OSRA Governance and Enforcement
. Act as the regional enforcement authority for FMC / OSRA compliance covering:
o OTI / NVOCC / Freight Forwarder roles
o NRA / NSA discipline and acceptance
o Tariff and rate governance
o OSRA‑compliant billing and D&D transparency
. Ensure that non‑compliant activity is prevented upstream, not corrected after the fact.
. Maintain the Regional Delegation of Authority (DoA) Matrix for all FMC‑relevant activities
. Ensure the DoA is explicit, role‑based and enforced operationally and systemically
. Resolve conflicts where commercial pressure conflicts with regulatory compliance obligations.

FMC / OSRA Control Effectiveness
. Ensure preventive and detective controls are operating effectively across the Region, including:
o Rate‑source lock
o NRA acceptance capture
o D&D invoice compliance checks
o Evidence integrity and retention
. Drive remediation where controls are bypassed, inconsistently applied, or ineffective.
. Ensure regional execution complements global control design and testing

Audit Readiness & Evidence Pack Management
. Own regional audit readiness for internal mock audits, global assurance testing, FTA's and external audits from regulators including but not limited to BEIC / FMC audits
. Coordinate compilation of complete, indexed evidence packs across all countries in-region.
. Ensure evidence packs meet regulatory requirements, retention timelines and global controls & assurance standards

Monitoring, Testing & Coordination
. Coordinate regional execution of monitoring and testing activities led by Global Controls & Assurance.
. Support shipment‑level audits and deep dives by ensuring availability of files and data, providing regional context and driving immediate containment actions where required

Corrective & Preventive Action (CAPA) Governance
. Ensure all MAJOR and CRITICAL findings in the Region have documented root cause analysis, assigned accountable owners and evidence‑based closure
. Track recurrence and drive preventive actions.
. Escalate systemic or repeated failures promptly.

Training, Awareness and Capability Building
. Enforce mandatory training and certification for all in‑scope roles.
. Ensure 100% FMC certification before access to U.S.‑trade execution (training-based system access gating).
. Ensure 100% DG certification before access DG shipment execution (training-based system access gating).
. Ensure training content reflect real audit findings, regional risk patterns and enforcement exposure
. Maintain LMS completion data for gating and audit evidence.

Agent & Third‑Party Compliance
. Enforce agent compliance standards, including FMC registration / eligibility verification, periodic attestations and risk‑based sampling of agent‑handled files
. Suspend or restrict agent activity where compliance risk exists.

Operating Model & Cadence
. Daily red queue review (blocked bookings/invoices, missing NRA acceptance, missing D&D fields, etc)
. Weekly regional compliance audits/sampling, capturing of top exceptions (Pareto), identification of repeat causes and assignment of CAPA owners and due dates
. Monthly Regional Assurance Review and reporting including sampling results, CAPA status and compliance training completions status
. Monthly consolidated regional reporting inputs to global Board pack

Differentiators
This role has undisputed cross‑functional authority at regional level to enforce compliance standards and require corrective action across Operations, Sales, Finance, IT and Agents, including the authority to pause operational execution or billing where material compliance risk exists.

Stakeholders
. Internal: Head of Ocean Freight Operations [Region], Global Risk Management & Compliance, Country Operations Heads, Global Controls & Assurance, Global OTI Compliance Owner, Operations, Sales, Finance, IT, DG Specialists
. External: Agents and partners (regional), regulators (via global leadership)

Skills
. Deep hands‑on knowledge of FMC / OSRA and maritime compliance
. Strong operational enforcement capability
. Audit readiness and evidence discipline
. High credibility with senior operational leadership

Qualifications & Key Requirements
. Degree in Compliance, Law, Supply Chain, or Business preferred
. 8-15+ years in ocean freight operations, compliance, or audit roles
. Demonstrated experience handling FMC / OSRA compliance in practice
. Strong leadership in a matrix environment
. Fluent in English additional languages are an advantage.
. Willing and able to travel approximately 15%.