Lead – Operational Excellence, Regional Customs Asia Pacific

Role Purpose

The Sr. Manager – Regional Customs Asia Pacific is responsible for driving operational standardization, integration enablement, and process excellence across multi‐country customs operations. The role plays a critical bridge between Operations, Product, IT, and Customers, enabling scalable customs solutions through harmonized operating models, robust data and integration frameworks, and structured implementation governance.

Key Responsibilities

1.

Operational Standardization & Operating Model:

• Define, document, and deploy standardized customs operating models across Asia Pacific markets.
• Gather and analyze country‐level customs operating practices to design regional templates and target models.
• Drive harmonization of SOPs, workflows, roles, and handover points across countries.
• Identify gaps, risks, and inefficiencies in existing operational models and recommend improvements.

2. Integration, Data & Digital Enablement

• Own and drive customs system integration flows between customer systems, DHL platforms, and local customs systems.
• Define and govern regional data models for customs transactions, compliance, and reporting.
• Act as business lead for integration requirements, translating operational needs into IT‐ready specifications.
• Partner with IT teams to support multi‐country integration design, testing, deployment, and stabilization.
• Drive automation initiatives using OCR and AI‐based tools to digitize customs documents, reduce manual intervention, and improve data accuracy and processing speed.
• Identify high‐impact use cases for automation (e.g., invoice capture, classification support, document validation, exception handling) and lead regional adoption in collaboration with IT and Digital teams.

3.

Customer Implementation & Support:

• Lead and streamline customer customs implementation programs across multiple countries.
• Ensure consistent onboarding approach, milestones, and readiness criteria for customer go‐
• Act as escalation point for complex multi‐country customer issues related to operations and integrations.
• Support key customers in transforming and scaling their customs processes using regional solutions.

4.

Performance Management & Continuous Improvement:

• Define and track performance indices (KPIs) covering productivity, quality, compliance, timeliness, and cost.
• Drive performance improvement initiatives across countries using data‐driven insights.
• Lead regional process improvement programs (Lean, standard work, automation readiness).
• Support countries in root cause analysis and corrective action deployment.

5. Program, Milestone & Stakeholder Management

• Manage regional programs with clear milestones, timelines, dependencies, and success measures.
• Ensure disciplined project governance, risk management, and stakeholder communication.
• Coordinate closely with Country Product Heads, Operations Leaders, IT, and Global Product teams.
• Prepare structured updates and decision inputs for regional management forums.

6. Multi‐Country IT & Integration Support Leadership

• Lead and coordinate multi‐country operational support to IT teams for customs integration topics.
• Ensure alignment between business priorities and IT delivery roadmaps.
• Support incident resolution, stabilization, and continuous improvement post‐

7.

Regional Customer Use Cases for Business Development:

The role will build and institutionalize regional data and insights use cases that can be packaged as value‑added offerings for customers and sales teams:

Regional Trade & Flow Insights

• Provide customers with regional visibility on shipment volumes, trade lanes, commodity mix, and clearance performance across Asia Pacific.
• Enable customers to benchmark country performance and identify consolidation or rerouting opportunities.

Duty, Tax & Cost Optimization Opportunities

• Use regional customs data to identify duty leakage, preferential trade agreement opportunities, and optimization levers.
• Support customers with scenario analysis for sourcing shifts, INCOTERMS changes, and landed‑cost optimization.

Compliance & Risk Intelligence

• Deliver proactive insights on customs risk indicators, error patterns, audit exposure, and regulatory impacts across multiple countries.
• Position DHL as a trusted advisor for risk mitigation and compliance strengthening.

Automation & Digital Readiness Assessments

• Share regionally aggregated insights on manual touchpoints, document quality, and automation potential.
• Support customers with roadmaps for OCR, AI, and system integration adoption at regional scale.

Performance Benchmarking & KPI Transparency

• Offer customers regional dashboards covering clearance cycle times, exceptions, accuracy, and service levels.
• Enable evidence‑based performance discussions and continuous improvement programs.

Business Growth & Market Entry Support

• Provide customs and regulatory insights to support customers entering new Asia Pacific markets.
• Highlight customs complexity, operating models, and integration requirements upfront to accelerate go‑live timelines.

Key Stakeholders

• Country Customs & Operations Heads
• Regional CDZ Product Team
• IT & Digital Customs Platforms Teams
• Sales & Customer Development Teams
• Global Customs Product & Governance Teams
• External Customers and Strategic Partners

Professional Services Development (Regional)

• Support the design, build, and scaling of regional professional services offerings based on operational, data, and integration of insights.
• Translate regional customs insights into structured, billable professional services (e.g., advisory, assessments, transformations, automation readiness, operating model design).
• Closely partner with Country Customs Heads and Operations teams to identify market needs, service gaps, and monetization opportunities.
• Drive professionalization of services delivery, including service definitions, scope of documents, pricing logic, delivery of playbooks, and governance.
• Enable countries to consistently deliver regional professional services with clear standards, methodologies, and quality benchmarks.
• Support Sales and Customer Development teams in positioning professional services through proposals, pursuits, QBRs, and customer workshops.
• Ensure strong linkage between professional services, core operations, and digital solutions to drive long‑term customer value and stickiness.

Skills & Experience

• Strong experience in Customs Brokerage / Customs Operations across multiple countries.
• Proven background in operational standardization, operating model design, and process improvement.
• Hands‐on experience with customs systems, integrations, and data models.
• Program and project management experience with multi‐country scope.
• Ability to translate operational requirements into IT and digital solutions.
• Strong stakeholder management across business, IT, and customer environments.
• Analytical, structured, and execution‐oriented mindset.
• Experience of around 7-10 years in delivering in similar roles

Behavioral Competencies

• Strategic and systems thinking
• Strong execution and delivery discipline
• Collaborative leadership across cultures and geographies
• Customer‐centric and solution‐oriented
• Comfortable operating in complex, matrix environments

Success Measures

• Adoption of standardized operating models across countries
• Stability and scalability of integration and data frameworks
• Improved customs performance indices and customer satisfaction
• Successful on‐time delivery of regional implementations and programs
• Strong alignment between Operations, IT, and Product teams
• Measurable customer value creation through regional insights and data‐driven business development use cases

Role Purpose

The Sr. Manager – Regional Customs Asia Pacific is responsible for driving operational standardization, integration enablement, and process exc