Relationship Partner – Client - East Rand, JHB

SUMMARY:
Relationship Partner – Client - East Rand, JHB

POSITION INFO:

Relationship Partner – Client

The purpose of this role is to lead and grow the companies’ client portfolio by acting as the primary commercial point of contact for client-signed customers leveraging warehousing and distribution services. The role exists to protect and expand customer value by ensuring effective onboarding, stable service delivery, disciplined governance, commercial sustainability, and coordinated growth across all relevant stakeholders. Without this role, account ownership, escalation management, partnership alignment, and portfolio growth would be fragmented, increasing the risk of customer churn, service instability, missed revenue opportunities, and reduced profitability. This role is accountable for the commercial management, relationship health, and growth of the client portfolio. It owns day-to-day commercial relationship management, governance coordination, account development activity, risk identification, and structured performance reporting across the partnership. The role does not independently own final approval of pricing exceptions, contract deviations, significant commercial concessions, operational execution within warehousing and distribution functions, or executive partnership policy decisions. It works closely with the Head of Sales & Servicing, operations and implementation teams, finance and commercial support teams, and client stakeholders to ensure aligned delivery, disciplined escalation, and sustainable portfolio growth. Commercial owner and relationship manager for a portfolio of client-signed customers, ensuring Customer retention and satisfaction, Revenue growth and account expansion, Service delivery stability, Commercial profitability Strong governance and stakeholder alignment

What Success Looks Like: Revenue growth within the portfolio, Customer retention and reduced churn, Successful onboarding of new customers, Profitability and margin improvement, SLA and KPI performance improvements, Quality of stakeholder relationships, Effective issue resolution, Accurate CRM reporting and pipeline management and Strong governance and action closure.

Partnership Account Management:

Manage the joint portfolio of client-signed customers using company warehousing and distribution services; act as the primary commercial interface.

Coordinate onboarding, implementation and ongoing delivery between the business and the client to meet SLAs and customer expectations.

Grow existing accounts through upsell / cross-sell of warehousing, distribution and value-added services.

Develop and close new opportunities for the client offering; support client acquisition with solution design, pricing inputs and implementation readiness.

Maintain partnership governance for the portfolio (communication plans, escalation paths, aligned priorities).

Manage commercial performance (rate reviews/escalations, contract adherence, profitability and recovery plans for at-risk accounts).

Lead business reviews and KPI forums; track actions and drive continuous improvement across all stakeholders.

Maintain CRM hygiene and reporting for portfolio performance and the partnership pipeline; provide structured updates to leadership.

Continuous Improvement:

Build capability in partnership selling and joint account management (client model; warehousing / distribution solutions).

Understand client operating models to identify enhancements, cost-to-serve improvements and value-added opportunities.

Drive improvements across onboarding, service delivery, reporting, escalation and billing to reduce friction between stakeholders.

Standardise partnership governance artefacts (scorecards, QBR templates, issue logs, action trackers).

Analyse trends, root-cause recurring issues and implement corrective/preventive actions with Ops and client stakeholders

Stakeholder Management:

Maintain strong stakeholder relationships across all partners and the business to ensure aligned execution and decision-making.

Coordinate client communication across the joint service model to ensure consistency, clear ownership and escalation.

Facilitate governance forums (KPI meetings, operational reviews, QBRs); agree actions and track closure.

Manage expectations via forward plans (peaks/changes/projects), risks and mitigation actions across all stakeholders.

Resolve inter-company and client issues via root-cause analysis, escalation and action planning to protect client experience

This role operates with a high level of day-to-day independence in managing the partnership portfolio, maintaining governance routines, coordinating onboarding and service reviews, identifying risks, and driving agreed account actions across the company and the client. The role is expected to make independent decisions within approved commercial and operational frameworks, while recommending rather than unilaterally approving pricing changes, non-standard commercial terms, contract amendments, major recovery plans, or changes with material financial, legal, or operational impact. These matters require alignment and approval from the Head of Sales & Servicing and/or other authorised stakeholders in line with company governance requirements.

Requirements:

• Grade 12 (Essential)

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain, Logistics or a related field (Essential)

• Postgraduate qualification, Honours degree, or relevant commercial / key account / supply chain management certification (Advantageous)

• 8–10 years’ experience in commercial account management, key account leadership, business development, or client partnership management within logistics, 3PL, supply chain, warehousing and distribution (Essential)

• Proven experience managing strategic client portfolios, leading cross-functional stakeholder engagement, and driving commercial growth, retention, and profitability improvement (Essential)

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