Ronald Schaefer

Ronald Schaefer is Senior Principal, Consulting. He is also the Consulting Head of the Certifications Programs (CEIV Pharma, CEIV Live Animals, CEIV Fresh, CEIV Lithium Battery, CBTA, etc.) at IATA.

Ronald was born in Hamburg, Germany, raised in Mexico and educated in the U.S. After long-term professional assignments in Germany, Spain, Malaysia, Kuwait, Venezuela and Canada, he has been based in Miami for the last 10 years working for IATA.

Before joining IATA, Ronald worked in the air transport field as a consultant for Lufthansa Consulting GmbH, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants GmbH and Ferrostaal México. He has worked on corporate restructuring, strategy, post-merger integration, market and competitive analysis, safety and risk management initiatives in the transportation industry on all continents. Throughout his career, Ronald has held positions in Mexico, Stuttgart, Kuala Lumpur, Frankfurt, Cologne, New York, Montreal and Miami.

At IATA, Ronald developed in conjunction with the IATA Pharma subject matter expert the CEIV Pharma pre-assessment tools and materials to facilitate successful independent validation of organizations. He also led the initial independent assessment proof-of-concept for Singapore Air Terminal Services (SATS) and is now managing the program worldwide. Since its start, he has managed ~380 certifications, +600 assessments and +550 validations.

Ronald is also jointly responsible for the development and implementation of new CEIV initiatives such as CEIV Live Animal, officially launched in April 2018, and CEIV Fresh launched in 2019. In conjunction with the IATA Live Animal and Perishable expert, he is also developing the pre-assessment tools for validations of organizations and jointly managing the ongoing pilots.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from California State University at Sonoma and Master of Business Administration from Georgetown University.