A day in the life of Nikolay Bogdanov

Nikolay Bogdanov joined Ahlers in the summer of 2022. He is the Business Development Manager for Ahlers Projects and Machinery. He is based in Spain, Madrid. Meet Nikolay through a series of questions and answers. 

Current job

  • What is your current position? My current position is Business Development Manager
  • What responsibilities does it entail? My responsibilities include searching for new customers and projects developing the relationship between the offices to get more business
  • What is an average day like in your current position? ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​An average day includes LinkedIn reviews, cold calls to potential customers, introduction and presentation emails, follow-up calls, Teams meetings, and conversations with my colleagues in different countries.

Beginnings

  • How did you get your start in the industry? I started in the industry by accident. I was hired by a utility company to supervise the freight forwarders, the shipping, and deliveries of equipment, and coordinate logistics activities.
  • What is your (educational) background? ​​​​​​​My education is related to foreign languages, all the rest was learned by doing, and based on years of experience.
  • What positions have you held before this one? ​​​​​​​Sales manager, Operations manager, Project manager, BDM
  • Do you have a mentor or someone that significantly helped you get to where you are today? ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​I don’t have a mentor. Life lessons and hard work have helped me to reach my actual position.

Evolution

  • How has your field evolved since you began?  Project cargo evolved drastically since I started. When I started in project logistics and heavy lift cargo back in 2007, 100 tons was already a considerable weight. Nowadays it is not seen as heavy as it was. When I started only a few specialized freight forwarders were doing project HL and over-dimensional cargo. Today nearly every freight forwarder is doing that.
  • How do you see it evolving further? I see the field evolving with regards to the increase of capacities of transport means (vessels, trailers, cranes), weights, and dimensions of cargoes, HL vessels increase gears capacities, deck strengths, etc. to be able to transport heavier items.
  • What changes would you like to see? Other significant changes will be related to sustainability and going green. All cargo lifting equipment manufacturers are already producing electric-powered equipment. The target will now be the increase of equipment autonomy and capacity.

Company

  • What is the focus of your company/ its mission? Our mission is to deliver high-quality services and enable our customers to focus on their core business, by offering innovative, sustainable, and tailor-made solutions beyond logistics with one common approach, global and local.
  • What makes your company different from its competitors? The difference from competitors is our close relationship based on trust, early involvement in the projects, attention to detail, speed of response, honesty, responsibility, and reliability.

Social

  • What do you like most about your job? What I like most is the variety of challenges, projects, different origins, and destinations. You never get bored with this job. The wide network of contacts helps me to overcome challenges, and solve problems. Many colleagues and agents have become friends.
  • What would you like people to know about your job? This job requires sacrifice, but it is also very satisfying.
  • What do you think the industry could do to attract more youths? I think the industry needs more promotion and explain better what the logistics jobs really are.