Director of Carrier Compliance

PLS Logistics Services•Nashville, TN

55d

About The Position

Build and lead a modern, defensible carrier vetting and compliance function — replacing PLS's current Highway-only process with a layered program, technology stack, and team that protect the company from fraud, unsafe carriers, and negligent-selection liability, and that can operate at scale without daily involvement from the President. The role involves completing a full audit of the current carrier compliance program and delivering a remediation roadmap, designing and deploying a layered carrier vetting stack, hiring and onboarding a carrier compliance team, achieving 100% continuous monitoring coverage of active carriers, reducing fraud and double-brokering incidents, and building a joint negligent-selection defense protocol with Legal and Risk Management.

Requirements

Honesty/Integrity — Does not cut corners; earns trust by walking the talk; speaks plainly even when the truth is inconvenient to sales or operations.
Analysis Skills — Structures and processes carrier, claims, and fraud data to reach sound, well-reasoned vetting decisions.
Attention to Detail — Does not let important details slip through; catches the authority lapse or insurance gap others miss.
Organization and Planning — Plans, organizes, and schedules a multi-workstream build-out (audit → tech → team → monitoring) in a productive, sequenced manner.
Proactivity — Acts without being told; identifies emerging fraud patterns and regulatory risk before they become incidents.
Change Leadership — Catalyzes new approaches, programs, and systems; challenges the status quo of a Highway-only process.
Manages/Develops People — Provides team members with feedback, coaching, and development to build a durable 2–3 person department from scratch.
Persuasion — Builds a case and convinces branch sales and operations leaders to adopt tighter vetting standards even when it adds friction.

Responsibilities

Complete a full audit of the current carrier compliance program and deliver a remediation roadmap within 90 days.
Assess today's Highway-only process end-to-end — onboarding, insurance verification, authority/safety-rating monitoring, and fraud/double-brokering detection — and present a gap analysis with a prioritized 12-month plan to the President.
Design and deploy a layered carrier vetting stack within 6 months.
Evaluate and select complementary tools (e.g., RMIS, Carrier411, DAT, Bluewire, or similar) to supplement Highway, with documented, defensible selection criteria tied to FMCSA safety rating, insurance verification, authority status, and fraud-risk scoring for every load tendered.
Hire, onboard, and stand up a carrier compliance team of 2–3 within 6–9 months.
Recruit specialists/analysts and document SOPs so vetting, onboarding, and ongoing monitoring run as a repeatable department function rather than an ad hoc process.
Achieve 100% continuous monitoring coverage of active carriers within 6 months.
Ensure every active carrier has current authority, insurance, and safety-rating status verified on an ongoing basis, with automated alerts on lapses or rating changes — eliminating manual, point-in-time checks.
Reduce fraud and double-brokering incidents by [X]% within 12 months (baseline to be set in month 1–2).
Establish a measurable baseline during the initial audit, then drive incident rates down through tightened vetting criteria and monitoring — without materially increasing carrier onboarding cycle time.
Build a joint negligent-selection defense protocol with Legal and Risk Management within 6 months.
In direct response to the Supreme Court's May 2026 ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II (which removed the FAAAA preemption shield brokers previously relied on for negligent-hiring claims), establish a documented, auditable carrier-selection trail for every tender — partnering with the Director of Risk Management and outside/internal counsel so PLS can affirmatively demonstrate ordinary care in carrier selection.