Making waves and moving forward

These thoughts also came to mind at our Summer Party a few weeks ago. Sunshine on the lake, a tree-lined shore, and a sandy beach were the perfect backdrop for teammates and their families to spend time together. “You should call it Family Day,” someone said. With waterskiing, wakeboarding, paddleboarding, canoeing, and an Aqua Park (with slides and trampolines), there were plenty of activities on offer, but also time and space to connect and share the most recent updates across the team.

A snapshot in numbers

On one of the last days of summer, 152 people (including 30 kids), comprising nearly 90 teammates, their families, and friends, gathered. They filled seven coaches, were invited to take part in six water-based activities and over 10 land-based games, attempted seven water ski jumps, had more than 300 sausages and toasted around 2.5 kilograms of marshmallows—that’s 358 marshmallows, give or take. Not healthy, but reasonable.

Just like the party, the company has grown in scale: Almost 90 teammates today, our team has grown by more than 27% since April 2024—with more to come. Furthermore, we’ve had over 46% year-on-year revenue growth since 2021. And so far in 2025, we’ve seen 37,000 new users and 150,000 new purchase transactions.

The roles shaping what's next

This year, we’ve welcomed not only 12 new Software Engineers, but also our first Sales Directors and Product Managers, alongside new additions to our platform, design, and delivery teams. Here’s a closer look at all of them…

Sales & business development

With Emanuel and Robby on board, we’re building the partnerships that make scaling possible.

Emanuel Darlea, Sales Director

Emanuel relocated from Montreal to Frankfurt, bringing more than 15 years of sales experience. He’s managed portfolios worth up to $20 million, led global teams of 60 people, and worked with various Fortune 1,000 companies, including Maersk, and has sales and project management expertise in tech across industries.

At Yatta, he’s now focused on expanding partnerships and growing our presence internationally, especially in the tech industry. Born in Romania, raised in Germany, and later moving to Canada, he’s fluent in English, French, and Romanian, and speaks German and Spanish at an intermediate level. Outside work, Emanuel is a keen cook, avid traveler, and natural problem solver who thrives on connecting with people to tackle and master challenges.

Robert Scharf (Robby), Sales Director

Robby joined us from LPA with nearly 20 years of sales and networking experience. He began his career selling diamonds—a masterclass in people and persuasion. At Yatta, he’s focused on growing our vendor base, particularly in public transportation and the public sector.

In his former life, Robby was a talented and highly disciplined athlete: a footballer, a competitive swimmer, and a professional skier. Today, he is a true Madridista, has an impressive golf handicap of scratch and a love of competitive sports. He met his wife 10 years ago through a shared love of diving, and they now have two young boys of five and three.

Product management

Lisa and Stephen bring instincts and hands-on experience that help turn vision into features.

Lisa VanRielly, Product Manager

Lisa moved with her family from Denver, USA, to Frankfurt, Germany, bringing eight years of experience shaping complex B2B and B2B2C products in fintech, healthcare, and telecom. Most recently, at Flywire, she developed payment solutions designed for those who can afford the least.

At Yatta, she combines a sharp instinct for product growth with a passion for the human side of technology, building tools that empower rather than overwhelm (obviously, we couldn’t have found a better fit 😉).

Away from work, when she’s not adventuring with her partner and their two young kids, Lisa is a self-professed foodie on a mission: To eat her way through Germany in search of the perfect loaf of bread.

Stephen Quirke, Product Manager

Stephen brings more than 12 years of product development experience across tech startups and corporations in the US. He previously led Strategy & Design for a flagship product at Knowde, a Sequoia-backed Silicon Valley startup, and headed global Product Management at Cirium, where he launched the first ML-powered airline scheduling app.

At Yatta, he helps with refining the product strategy and paves the way for new features and services of Yatta Checkout and the Yatta Platform. Having moved with his family from the US to Germany last year, Stephen is a keen photographer, former house music radio host and a big Liverpool FC supporter—glad to be back in Europe where catching matches is much easier!⚽

Engineering & Technology

Together, Florian, Christopher, Boris and Tim make sure our foundations support our growth.

Florian Schneider, Venture Team Lead

Florian (left) studied Computer Science in Wiesbaden and swiftly moved into software project management. He previously worked in the space industry, and most recently was Director of Consulting Services at CGI.

As a Venture Team Lead, Florian brings together people, technology and strategy to turn ambitious ideas into running software and plans into outcomes. An astronomer in his spare time, he also loves cycling, table tennis and hitting the gym.

Christopher Thonfeld-Guckes, Project Lead

Christopher (middle left) joined us, having previously worked for Zurich-based triarc laboratories. In addition to his hands-on engineering mindset and creative energy, outside of work, he’s a drummer, accordion player, DIY home renovator and proud dad of three.

Boris Malenšek, Head of Platform Services & Infrastructure

Bolstering our Platform Engineering team further, Boris (middle right) joined us from Aiven. Moving from Berlin to Frankfurt, he also worked for TomTom and Zalando. At Zalando, he scaled their Merchant Operations engineering organization from 20 to over 110 engineers.

A keen athlete, he previously played badminton in the Slovenian National League.

Tim Schmidt, Venture Team Lead

Working alongside Florian as a Venture Team Lead is Tim (right). With a B.Sc. in computer science from DHBW Mannheim, he spent part of his studies at IBM, then led multinational development and platform ops teams at Deloitte with a focus on data engineering, cloud platforms, and AI.

As our other Venture Team Lead, Tim combines deep technical know-how with hands-on leadership to help teams and clients in Public Transport and beyond perform with digital products and systems. When he's not in the office, you can find him exploring the Taunus trails on his gravel bike.

Design & Delivery

Design is how ideas become usable.

Didem Toprak Orhon, Digital & Product Designer

After relocating to Germany from Turkey, Didem brings with her experience of digital transformation projects for Akbank and financial product development for McKinsey. At Yatta, she helps bring brilliantly simple design to our platform and products.

In her spare time, she enjoys spending time off-grid with her husband and dog.

Software Engineering

This year, more software engineers have joined to push us further: New teammates include Ali Aminian, a seasoned backend and DevOps engineer with 16 years’ experience in banking and SWIFT finance; Arun Jose, who recently earned his master’s in Digital Engineering from the University of Magdeburg and brings hands-on experience from Intel; Peter Leicht, a TU Darmstadt graduate and former IT consultant who also co-founded his own e-commerce startup; Ricardo “Rico” Reyna, who joins Team Nemo with an IT background from his time in the U.S. Army in Wiesbaden—and a growing passion for writing code, learning Japanese, and playing guitar (with a drum set possibly next on the list); Roland Fuchs, who teaches computer science at Hochschule Darmstadt, joins us with deep C++ and architecture expertise, and still carries a hint of his metalhead roots; Sebastian Ochs, an active problem-solver and board-game enthusiast who’s also been known to code his own mini-games; and Shehryar “Shery” Bokhari, a Frankfurt native with dual degrees in mathematics and physics and five years as a lead developer. Also joining in Frankfurt is Noah Mühl as a working student.

And a further four engineers joined us in September: Laurenz Seipel, who worked in IT consulting as a Full-Stack Developer on web and iOS solutions; Amar Ademi, who completed his Computer Science degree at TU Darmstadt with a focus on cryptography; Jan-Philipp Fahlbusch, whose background spans mechanical engineering, machine learning, and the gaming industry; and Marvin Christian who joins Team Nemo having recently completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees.

Collectively, they bring experience from institutions such as TU Darmstadt, the University of Magdeburg, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, and TU München, as well as from employers including Intel, the US Army Europe, and Ubisoft Mainz.

On the horizon

From Denver, Montreal, and Istanbul to Frankfurt: Our new teammates bring expertise and fresh perspectives from all over the world. And in the upcoming event season, you’ll find us at SaaStock, TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco and Web Summit in Lisbon—come and say hi if you see us.

Or better yet, check out our open roles and help us chart our course. 🏄‍♂️