Birgit Otto was Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Schiphol Group from 2014 until the summer of 2022. Before that, she worked as Managing Director in various roles, also at Schiphol Group. In her temporary role as COO, Birgit succeeds Ans Rietstra, who left last December for the Criminal Investigation Cooperation Team (RST) in the Caribbean.

In her role at ProRail, Birgit Otto will focus on the operational divisions Projects, Traffic Control and Asset Management. An exception to this are the Port, PGO and Safety files. These will remain with the current Board of Directors. 

knowledge and experience

CEO John Voppen is pleased with the arrival of Birgit as acting COO: “We have already worked intensively and pleasantly with Birgit around Schiphol. With Birgit we bring in a director with a lot of knowledge and experience in the operation. It is great that it can and wants to use it for sustainable rail transport in the coming period.”

reorganization

Birgit Otto had been COO at Schiphol since 2014, when she announced that a reorganization would take place to make the business operation more efficient. For this reason, the Supervisory Board had decided to reduce the Executive Board to three members. Birgit Otto's term expired at the end of August 2022, but due to this reorganization she left a few months early.