Ariaen Zimmerman is the executive director of Cargo iQ, whose global membership work together to measure success and continuously improve the value of airfreight for customers.  

Since July 2015, he has led the IATA interest group’s change programme, which included a new industry standard audit and certification scheme, and a toolkit to assist members in recommending Cargo iQ. 

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Mr Zimmerman shared a few words before the deadline of nominations and here’s what he had to say:  

“The pandemic has clearly shown the world the importance of a reliable logistics solution through air. Our members see that importance too. 

“The situation going forward may be that our members—as most all companies—will put a higher focus on getting tangible results for their efforts and resources. The industry as a whole—and its customers—will continue to feel the financial pressure from the COVID situation, making them more focused. 

“We believe this to be a good thing. As said, quality management will be a part of that focus and we are confident that a more pragmatic attitude will help us in our implementation of some still necessary improvements in processes and their planning, control and evaluation. 

“We see some of the things that were never possible now become possible, such as remote audits and our teleworking attitudes. Overall IT has proven itself as a real enabler. Hopefully we will be able to take some of that momentum into accelerating our industry’s agenda on improvement.”