After completing her Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences in 2002, Kirsten de Bruijn began her career in hotel management in the USA, working at Starwood.

She learned the importance of yield, pricing and margin, and developed her customer-focused vision and extremely high standards. As a result of her fascination with aviation, she gradually transitioned into the air cargo industry, which led her to focus more on operations and network optimization.

She began her 13 years of management experience in the air cargo industry with Martinair (where she held several positions, most recently Director of Operations for the Americas), followed by four years at Air France – KLM Cargo and Martinair Cargo, where she held the role of Director Capacity & Revenue Management and Full Freighter Management Asia Paciöc & Middle East before moving to the position of Director Pricing, Capacity and Contracting Europe & Worldwide Pricing.

She subsequently became Vice President Cargo – Pricing and Interline at Emirates SkyCargo, a role that she held for almost five years.

In 2019 she completed the Global Business Consortium at London Business School. In September 2020, she then joined Qatar Airways Cargo as Senior Vice President, Cargo Sales and Network Planning.