“Christmas is our peak business season”

(portrayed in 2025)

Dagmar Möbius

Stine Ferse is passionate about airplanes. Ever since she flew to England alone at the age of 13 to take part in an exchange program, she knew that she wanted to pursue a career in aviation and business. After studying Transport Economics at TUD, she has held various positions at DHL around the world where she has been a manager for three years.

Stine Ferse, who is from Dresden, was not interested in studying a degree that was only about business. “I like airports. I like their atmosphere, and I’m interested in the processes that lie behind them,” says Stine Ferse. TU Dresden’s Diplom degree program in Transport Economics with a specialization in aviation, with its excellent reputation, was just right for her. It was more of a gut feeling than a sudden spark that led her to choose this career.

Aviation forever

She finished studying in 2009. Her degree program consisted mainly of the subjects transport econometrics/statistics, logistics, air transport, and spatial economics. She was interested in all of these, especially aviation and Delphi programming. Professor Knut Haase, who is now at Universität Hamburg, impressed Stine Ferse with his extensive knowledge. “And he was really nice,” she laughs. The skills she learned during her studies relating to structure and research continue to help her today. “What's the best way to tackle things? How do you approach big projects where a lot of things are still unclear?” She completed a six-month internship at Lufthansa Cargo in the USA.

Because DHL also has close ties to aviation, Stine Ferse started working there as a GroW trainee immediately after graduating. Initially, she was employed in supply chain (warehousing). “It wasn't my favorite topic,” she admits, “but I learned a lot.” The international phase of the trainee program took her to DHL Express Singapore for five months. There, in the Air Cargo Sales (ACS) department, she felt very much at home. This department resells the remaining capacity of cargo aircraft used by DHL Express.

© archive Ferse

From SQL to IT

Directly afterwards, Stine Ferse accepted her first permanent position at DHL Express in the Global Network Management department. This is where she developed a methodology for forecasting the capacity utilization of express cargo planes. Scientific analyses enable better capacity planning and resale when necessary. While developing the tool, she rediscovered her interest in business IT. “I had worked as a tutor for Turbo Pascal courses while I was a student,” she recalls. However, switching from Excel to IT requirements for SQL, and writing some of it herself, was still a challenge. “Afterwards, I would sometimes think about how much could have been done better,” she says. “But that's a part of development.”

Love for an international environment

Working in an international environment was really important to her. After four years, Stine Ferse moved to Electronic Shipping Solutions at DHL Express with the aim of further developing her strengths. "There, I was primarily responsible for an offline shipping application that handled approximately 20 percent of DHL Express's freight revenue. She also played a leading role in rolling out a new online tool on a global scale. This may sound simple, but when you get into the details, it's actually quite complex: “In order to generate a shipping label, the software needs to know, among other things, how much it costs to ship a package from A to B as well as the customs regulations of the countries in question. And all of this without the user having to enter too much information themselves," explains Stine Ferse.

© archive Ferse

Frequent traveler and returning home

Stine Ferse's job has taken her to many places. She has worked in Brussels, Leipzig, and Kuala Lumpur. She has first-hand experience with large corporate clients in Europe, Africa, and North America, as well as the countries she is responsible for. Working in an international environment with English as the working language suits her well. “What's ... in German?” is something of a catchphrase for her.

The COVID-19 pandemic marked a significant turning point in Stine Ferse's biography. “I just managed to get back to Germany before lockdown started,” she says. Then she became a mother and received an job offer at another DHL department.

For the past three years, she has been working in Bonn as Digital Experience Platform Director at DHL CSI (Customer Solutions & Innovation). “We are continuing to develop ‘the platform,' the underlying content management system for dhl.com and other sites, from a technical perspective,” says the transport economist.

In addition to the professional challenge, taking on a leadership position in which she was now responsible for five direct and more than 20 indirect employees was relatively new territory for Stine Ferse. “As a mother of two small children, it's challenging and not always easy, but interesting!” Childcare in North Rhine-Westphalia is not as well developed as in her hometown of Dresden, and it's also much more expensive. Stine Ferse is also in demand as a logistics expert in her family, helping to keep everything running smoothly. “Fortunately, my very accommodating working conditions make this possible,” she says. The 43-year-old is keeping her long-term career plans open. “At the moment, everything is fine as it is,” she says. And that's despite the fact that Christmas, her company's peak business season, is just around the corner.

Contact: 
Stine Ferse
Director Digital Experience Platform Delivery

DHL.com

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