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Salary: USD 115,000 - 125,000 / annual
Airspace is a tech-enabled freight forwarder using AI and machine learning to coordinate logistics across a global network of drivers and airlines. The company delivers mission-critical packages—organs for transplant, aircraft parts, semiconductors—faster, more transparently, and more securely than traditional logistics. Headquartered in Carlsbad, CA with European operations in Amsterdam, Airspace has raised over $140M and is recognized as one of America's best startup employers and a CNBC Disruptor 50 company.
In this role, you will manage a matrix structure of six direct reports: four Regional Network Managers (each owning a full geography) and two Agent Leads (each owning agent-specific execution across two regions). Your core responsibility is ensuring consistent standards, tooling, and escalation protocols across all regions while managing the inherent tension of a dotted-line model where RNMs are accountable for outcomes they don't personally execute on the agent side.
Key responsibilities include:
**Team Management & Leadership**
- Directly manage four Regional Network Managers, ensuring cross-regional consistency in performance standards, tooling, and escalation protocols
- Directly manage two Agent Leads, balancing workload across their two-region split and ensuring consistent agent execution
- Coach and develop both groups differently—RNMs need broad general-manager judgment; Agent Leads need deep, specific judgment on agent performance and difficult conversations
- Resolve misalignment between RNMs and Agent Leads before it becomes a network problem
- Own prioritization decisions when two RNMs sharing an Agent Lead both need attention simultaneously (a structural, recurring tension, not an exception)
**Agent Deactivation Decisions**
- Serve as one of three required decision-makers (alongside the Agent Lead and Procurement) on every agent deactivation, bringing cross-regional and operational perspective
- Ensure deactivation decisions are documented consistently and held to the same standard across all four regions
- Escalate to the VP only when a deactivation carries strategic or account-level risk beyond a single region
**Operational Escalation & Strategic Partnership**
- Serve as the escalation point for RNMs on cross-regional issues or decisions exceeding their authority
- Serve as the escalation point for Agent Leads on issues cutting across multiple regions or requiring senior judgment
- Stay aligned with the Senior Manager of Network Enablement on recruiting pipelines and training programs reflecting regional demand
- Partner with the VP on capacity planning, org design, and strategic initiatives
- Partner with the Director, US Network Solutions during new account/capability builds, ensuring handoffs translate into operational reality
- Coordinate with the Lead, US Network Strategy & Operations to ensure data and scorecard methodology are consistent and trustworthy
**Success Metrics**
2026: Performance standards, tooling, and escalation protocols are consistent across all four regions. RNMs and Agent Leads report clear, well-functioning working relationships. Agent deactivation decisions are documented consistently. Handoffs from Network Solutions land cleanly.
2027: The RNM and Agent Lead structure runs with enough maturity that it no longer requires your active mediation. Cross-regional consistency is measurably improved. You spend more time on capacity planning and strategic partnership than resolving day-to-day friction.
**First 90 Days**
Build individual working relationships with all four RNMs and both Agent Leads. Get fluent in how the RNM/Agent Lead structure is actually working, where seams are clean and where they're not. Sit in on at least one agent deactivation decision. Build working relationships with Network Solutions and Network Strategy & Operations leadership.
**First 180 Days**
Performance standards and escalation protocols are consistent and well understood across all six direct reports. You have a track record on deactivation decisions that RNMs, Agent Leads, and Procurement trust. At least one Network Solutions handoff has gone through cleanly with your involvement. The VP sees you as the person keeping regional execution consistent.
**Requirements**
- 2–5+ years of experience in network operations, field operations, or multi-site operations leadership, with people-management experience across more than one function or team type
- Experience managing managers, not just individual contributors; comfortable coaching leaders who own full geographies as well as leaders who own specialized, narrower functions
- Comfortable being one of three decision-makers on consequential calls rather than the sole decision-maker; shares authority well without diluting accountability
- Comfortable making fast, sometimes unpopular prioritization calls between two peers who each think their need is more urgent; this happens routinely with a shared Agent Lead, and defaulting to indecision is not an option
- Strong operational judgment—can distinguish between regional issues that should stay with the RNM and cross-regional issues that genuinely need senior management-level intervention
- Experience partnering with strategic or business-development-style functions receiving handoffs of new capabilities or accounts, and translating them into operational reality on the ground
- Clear, direct communicator, comfortable resolving disagreements between peers who report to you and who may see a shared problem differently
- Bachelor's degree in a related field, or equivalent practical experience
