Cargo Partnerships Manager - Freight Forwarders

The organisation

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, Rotterdam The Hague Airport and Lelystad Airport, and holds a majority stake in Eindhoven Airport and a 40% stake in Maastricht Aachen Airport. With around 4,000 employees, the organisation enables international connectivity for passengers, Cargo and businesses, and plays a central role in the Dutch economy, tourism and international trade.

The organisation operates in a complex public and private environmet, balancing safety, sustainability, capacity, societal responsibility and operational performance. Its focus is on long-term value creation, reliability of infrastructure, and building resilient, future-oriented systems that support mobility, trade and logistics flows.

The Cargo organisation operates within Schiphol Commercial and supports the development of the Cargo sector at Schiphol. Cargo plays a vital role in the quality of the network and the number of worldwide destinations directly connected through the hub, and contributes to the strength and relevance of Schiphol as an international gateway.

Within this context, Cargo focuses on the strategic development, coordination and positioning of Schiphol’s Cargo ecosystem. It acts as a facilitator of logistics flows rather than an operator, connecting airlines, freight forwarders, handlers, terminals, trucking companies and public stakeholders across the Cargo value chain.

The Cargo organisation has been recently established in its current form as part of the renewed Cargo strategy and is being further developed and professionalised. Operating models, governance, data capabilities and ways of working continue to be strengthened. This creates an environment in which professionals contribute not only to execution, but also to shaping structures, refining operating models and supporting the long-term development of a future-oriented Cargo platform.

The position

Freight forwarders play a critical role in the cargo chain, acting on behalf of shippers to steer volumes and determine gateway choices across Europe. This role is the primary interface for freight forwarders at Schiphol. The core challenge lies in activating collaboration within a dynamic and complex cargo ecosystem, in which Schiphol operates as a facilitator of logistics flows rather than an operator. The role focuses on enabling freight forwarders to operate successfully by reducing friction in processes, improving throughput, and structurally resolving operational bottlenecks. The emphasis is on factors that directly impact load factors, reliability, transit times and effective capacity utilisation.

The Cargo Partnerships Manager – Freight Forwarders role builds and strengthens strategic relationships with the freight forwarding community to activate market development, stimulate Cargo growth and initiate new cargo flows, positioning Schiphol as a preferred Cargo gateway through trust-based, long-term collaboration. A core element of the role is understanding the commercial and operational decision frameworks used by freight forwarders in gateway selection, including cost structures, pricing models, service reliability, operational performance and end-to-end value creation across the logistics chain.

The role fulfils a central coordinating function between Schiphol and the freight forwarding community, focused on building strong and sustainable relationships across the market. In this context, the Cargo Partnerships Manager – Freight Forwarders works closely with Air Cargo Netherlands (ACN) as an important enabling platform to connect with the sector, align interests and structure dialogue. ACN, as the industry association for the Dutch air Cargo sector, provides access to freight forwarders and key stakeholders through meetings and steering groups. Through this positioning, the role builds transparent communication lines with the community, ensuring ecosystem alignment and shared visibility on developments, performance insights, trends and data-driven initiatives.

The Cargo Partnerships Manager – Freight Forwarders operates within the Cargo organisation and reports directly to the Head of Cargo, working as part of a team of seven professionals.

Tasks & responsibilities

The role operates at the intersection of strategy, operations and stakeholder collaboration to deliver tangible system-level change and will be responsible for:

• Building and growing strategic relationships with freight forwarders, with a strong focus on understanding their logistical, commercial and operational drivers, gateway decision-making and market development potential to stimulate new Cargo flows and growth.
• Connecting internal and external stakeholders to realise structural improvements in flows, load factor processes and performance across the Cargo ecosystem.
• Optimising flows, reliability and throughput by structurally improving performance across the Cargo ecosystem through bottleneck reduction and the application of best practices from leading logistics ecosystems.
• Translating ecosystem signals into structured delivery, converting insights and bottlenecks into coordinated actions across the Cargo organisation and Cargo community, supported by governance, clear agendas, action plans and project-based execution.
• Strengthening Schiphol’s, including Maastricht Airport (as 7th runway) Cargo positioning and ecosystem alignment, building shared priorities and coherent narratives across stakeholders, with reliability, flow, collaboration and logistics quality as core pillars.
• Contributing to the build-up of the Cargo organisation and the rollout of the Cargo Strategy by helping create structure, operating models and an operational rhythm, while positioning Schiphol as a preferred Cargo gateway through a logistics system perspective.
• Translating the Cargo Strategy into clear, measurable objectives and contributing to Schiphol’s long-term Cargo growth ambition to increase volumes from 1.5 million tonnes in 2024 to more than 2 million tonnes in 2035, through targeted market development, optimisation of flows, processes and gateway choices within capacity constraints.

Candidate profile

• Completed university degree in business administration, logistics, supply chain management or a related field.
• At least six years of experience in complex logistics chains and multi-stakeholder environments, preferably including air Cargo and freight forwarding.
• Experience operating in environments where structures, processes and data are still evolving.
• Strong affinity with operational and commercial logistics environments, with a practical understanding of how the air Cargo business functions.

Skills and Competencies

• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence without formal authority.
• A connecting and trust-based leadership style focused on collaboration and long-term relationships.
• Analytical capability to translate operational signals into structural improvements.
• Ability to operate across different business cultures and translate complex concepts into clear, relevant language for different audiences.
• High energy level, hands-on mentality and proactive drive, with resilience in demanding environments.
• Strong personal motivation and ambition to grow with the organisation and contribute to building a future-oriented Cargo organisation.

Interested?

You are invited to apply for this position by following the link below. For more information, please contact Beatrice Bonioli at +31 (0)6 30 61 67 17.