As we continue to grow, we would like to introduce you to our latest additions to the team. With them, we've further expanded our software engineering team, and also added new capabilities and expertise in product, legal, strategy, and events.
Giuliana Alcantara, Chief of Staff
Giuliana has over 10 years of experience in helping companies find and realize growth. She has worked as a strategy consultant on four continents, most recently as a Senior Manager for the Private Equity Group at Bain & Co. There, she supported investors in developing their portfolio strategy and evaluated the growth potential of prospective takeover candidates. Before working at Bain, she set up and ran Mergers & Acquisition activities for Atotech in Berlin, acquiring several assets for the company and helping them through an IPO.
Giuliana has a diverse background: She was born and raised in Brazil, where she qualified as a lawyer and co-founded an internet start-up. Following the dot-com crash in 2000/01, she moved to Europe, working for several years in Germany and the UK. A versatile talent, Giuliana has developed software, worked in research, authored books, started education initiatives, and raised funds for global charities, including UNICEF. She speaks several languages, including English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese fluently and is well-experienced in building and leading teams.
At Yatta, Giuliana will work closely with our CEO and focus on corporate and team development.
Ashton Joel Goonting, VP Product
Ashton joins us from Trimble in Antwerp, Belgium, where he was Director of Product and Engineering, managing a suite of web and mobile based products covering the end to end transport planning and execution process in a supply chain. His previous roles include product leadership positions at Kuehne + Nagel, Alpega and DHL, where he gained extensive experience in building and launching enterprise SaaS platforms. Prior to this, he worked as a Product Engineer for a cellular technology startup in South Africa.
Ashton obtained a full riders government merit scholarship to pursue his undergraduate degree in Engineering at the University of Nottingham. There, he graduated as a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer & Electronics with honors. Ashton is fascinated by architecture, as well as being a foodie and keen traveler visiting more than 55 countries so far.
At Yatta, Ashton will drive product management for the Yatta Platform including Yatta Checkout. For this Ashton took a second apartment in Frankfurt, while his wife Vera is still living in Brussels.
Maximilian Lang, General Counsel
Max is a highly experienced lawyer admitted to practise in both Germany and England & Wales—and former partner at the renowned international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
Born in Germany, Max finished school in England, where he completed his A-levels at The Leys School in Cambridge. He then went on to Oxford to study jurisprudence at Brasenose College, one of the University of Oxford’s constituent colleges and a world leading academic institution for law. His professional career began in London over 20 years ago when he joined Freshfields as a trainee solicitor. During his secondment at Morgan Stanley, he experienced the 2008 financial crisis first-hand. Max has worked on complex, cross-jurisdictional transactions in Frankfurt, London and New York, advising high-profile clients on a wide range of legal matters. He became one of the youngest lawyers ever to be made partner at Freshfields in Germany and served in that role in both Frankfurt and London for eight years. During the pandemic, he transitioned from law firm partner to angel investor and strategic advisor to start-ups.
Max is deeply passionate about tech and avidly reads literature that inspires our work, such as Marc Andreessen’s Techno-Optimist Manifesto, as well as our own thoughts on it. In addition to his literary and tech interests, Max is a keen sportsman, enjoys exploring the world of yoga and meditation, and is a lover of the arts. He has just moved from London to Frankfurt.
Marco Neubert, Head of Events
Marco joins Yatta from Berlin-based agency DCMN, where he was Chief Communications Officer. He organized various company appearances at major events such as Gamescom in Cologne, the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, OMR in Hamburg, and NOAH in Berlin.
Marco’s career started during his apprenticeship when he and a friend started a blog on PC games. This soon led to invitations to national and international gaming conferences—and ultimately to selling the blog to the publisher OnlineWelten. There, Marco served as Chief Editor and Director Product PR, even after the company was sold to Gameforge AG. During this time, Marco continued his education in evening classes, earning diplomas in marketing communications and business economics from the Verwaltungs- & Wirtschafts-Akademie Berlin. Following Gameforge came Infernum, where Marco took on international brand positioning before transitioning to the agency world and joining DCMN. Even after moving back to the Frankfurt area, where he and his family bought a home, Marco continued to work for DCMN.
Now, he has found a new professional home with us. Marco is an enthusiastic host and pays keen attention to the details to create a memorable experience for every visitor. So, stay tuned for what’s next—and meet us, for example, at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Francisco.
More newcomers in tech
At the same time, our software engineering team continues to develop and grow: Fisnik Krasniqi joined us in Kassel while Jose Sutama, Lentian Latifi, Rodion Roberman have been with us since August and July. In addition, Rupert Burnham has become part of our content and editorial team.
So far, 13 new teammates have joined us since the beginning of the year—and we continue to grow! In 2024, our team grew by over 20% while our revenue grew year-over-year by over 45%, and this is just the beginning… 🚀
Find all our job openings here. We welcome anyone who shares our values and is willing to commit to and work hard towards our shared mission. Together, we want to help build the next tech unicorns in Germany and Europe.
Here’s to great things to come…