Customs Compliance Manager

General Summary:

The Customs Compliance Manager will serve as the internal owner of global trade governance and compliance for a leading national discount retailer, managing the company-wide U.S. Import Compliance Program. This role is the primary liaison between Sourcing, Finance, Legal, Logistics, Quality & Product Compliance, Customs Brokers, and executive leadership, ensuring that import activity is compliant, strategically aligned, financially optimized, and executed with full visibility across the organization.

This is a long-term leadership position scoped for people management and organizational growth. The Manager will build, lead, and develop an internal trade compliance team.

Clear and concise communication with key stakeholders is central to the role, translating complex trade and regulatory requirements into actionable guidance for partners across the business and for executive leadership, and escalating issues appropriately to drive cross-functional execution.

Principal Duties & Responsibilities:

• Own and operate the company’s Import Trade Governance Program, leading its recurring cadence: Weekly Trade Operations meetings, Monthly Executive Trade Review, Quarterly Broker Reviews, the CTPAT Steering Committee, the Trade Compliance Committee, and cross-functional import risk meetings.
• Build, manage, and develop an internal trade compliance team — setting priorities and roadmap, establishing and tracking SLAs, and mentoring and growing staff as responsibilities transition in-house for the long term.
• Coordinate any temporary third-party trade advisory support during the transition period, ensuring their work is integrated into the business, tracking deliverables and service levels, and progressively transitioning their capabilities in-house.
• Finance: partner on duty forecasting and budget planning, tariff accruals, duty payments, IEEPA duty refund opportunities, duty recovery initiatives, customs reconciliation, and the financial impact of new tariffs.
• Global Sourcing: coordinate tariff mitigation opportunities, CTPAT requirements, compliance and renewals, and First Sale.
• Legal: coordinate trade law changes and Executive Orders impacting imports, government investigations and regulatory inquiries, customs penalties, prior disclosures, contract language affecting imports, sanctions, UFLPA (Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act) matters, and anti-dumping.
• Logistics / Transportation: partner on customs clearance and detention.
• Quality & Product Compliance: coordinate CPSC, FDA, and EPA matters, testing and regulatory documentation, product holds, and import admissibility.
• Customs Brokers: provide oversight of entry accuracy, clearance performance, HTS classification support, Post Summary Corrections (PSCs), protests, ACE reporting, and broker KPIs.
• Oversee executive deliverables, including the Executive Trade Dashboard, Weekly Trade Law & Tariff Update, Import Risk Dashboard, Duty Spend & Recovery Report, IEEPA Refund Tracker, CTPAT Status Report, Broker Performance Scorecard, Open Trade Issues Log, Regulatory Change Impact Assessments, and the Annual Import Compliance Report.
• Provide reporting and guidance related to tariffs and the changing trade environment, and general support for daily import logistics operations.

Position Requirements:

• Bachelor’s degree in business or a related field; Master’s degree preferred.
• Minimum of 7–10 years of experience in international logistics and trade compliance, with emphasis on imports and U.S. Customs regulations and procedures.
• Retail experience managing high-volume, high-SKU import programs; comfortable operating across a large and complex product assortment.
• Clear and concise communication, with superior written and verbal skills in English and the ability to engage stakeholders from operational teams through executive leadership.
• Clear understanding of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, including the General Rules of Interpretation and Explanatory Notes.
• Working knowledge of relevant programs and regulations, including CTPAT, UFLPA, anti-dumping, sanctions, IEEPA, and ACE.
• US. Customs broker license, preferred.
• Excellent PC skills.