Brig Gen (retired) Brenda Cartier is the founder of Cartier Consulting Group, LLC and a retired Air Force Air Commando. She is the former Director of Operations, Headquarters Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) and Director of Operations and Communications, Headquarters Air Education and Training Command (AETC).

As the AFSOC Director of Operations she was responsible for 20,000 Airmen and 280 aircraft providing special operations combat airpower globally. As the AETC Director of Operations and Communications she was responsible for the world's largest training organization, providing training for over 300,000 Air Force, joint and international personnel at 65 Air Force and Department of Defense locations and provided strategic vision, policy, guidance, and advocacy to build, operate, secure, defend and extend the Air Force portion of the Department of Defense global network.

A career special operator, she has commanded at multiple levels and held various positions on major command and combatant command staffs, as well as the Joint Staff. She is a command navigator with more than 4,000 flying hours, primarily in the AC-130U gunship, including five deployments and two command tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Additionally, she was a National Security Affairs Fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University, California.