About us

Team

Experts for your success 

 

Our team of experienced specialists supports you in your management decisions with expert advice, well-founded analysis and professional implementation based on valid, meaningful results. Experts from a wide variety of areas including market research, retail, industry and business, are at your disposal.

Our management team

Gerd Palmer

CEO

Vita:

Gerd Palmer founded gps dataservice GmbH in 1997, which was rebranded Yagora GmbH in 2020 and has been managing director ever since. Before that, he held various management positions in sales at FERRERO, most recently as national sales manager for refrigeration.

 

In addition to his work as managing director, he is also the contact person for the foreign subsidiaries in South-East Asia, Russia and Malta and is responsible for the strategic development of the companies.

 

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Andreas Luppold

Partner

Vita:

Since 2002 Andreas Luppold has been a partner of Yagora GmbH with a focus on shopper research, qualitative market research and marketing. Before joining Yagora, he held management positions at Tchibo, J. Walter Thompson Worldwide and the publishing group Deutscher Fachverlag.

 

Andreas Luppold is a part-time lecturer in marketing at the Hessian BA, University of Cooperative Education. He regularly publishes articles in the field of marketing and market research.

 

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Steffen Schöne

Director Data Science & Shopper Research

Vita

Before starting at Yagora in 2013, Steffen Schöne worked at JEKO Marktforschung GmbH, gaining experience in management positions in the area of field research. At Yagora, Steffen Schöne is responsible for the areas of data science and shopper research. He oversees a large number of national and international retail and shopper research projects.

In addition, Steffen Schöne regularly gives lectures as part of GS1 Germany’s Category Management certification process, as well as at industry congresses such as ECR Live!

 

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Anja Crummenauer

Director Shopper Analytics

Vita:

Anja Crummenauer came directly to Yagora in 2009 after completing her degree in Business Administration at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Her studies focused on marketing, statistics and business informatics, and included various practical internships, thus laying the ideal foundation for her work at Yagora.

At Yagora, Anja Crummenauer heads the shopper analytics team and is therefore responsible for consulting on, implementing and evaluating controlled market tests. She is also an expert with many years of experience in the field of customer loyalty card data analysis.

 

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Lena Denneng

Head of Finance

As Head of Finance at Yagora GmbH, Lena Denneng is responsible for finance and payroll management. She studied business administration with a focus on taxes, auditing, international and national accounting, strategic controlling and planning. Before joining the company in 2018, she held various positions in tax advice and auditing. She draws on extensive experience in tax, accounting, auditing and finance.

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William Foroudi

Head of Testpanel Management

Vita

William Foroudi has been with the company since 2001. In addition to managing the in-house field service, he is responsible for the test panel in Germany and coordinating our work with our retail partners. During his time at Yagora, William Foroudi has also been in charge of training the sales team, and temporarily managed the company's Russian branch.

Before William Foroudi came to Yagora, he worked for several years as an independent retailer, working in sales within the food industry.

 

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Our Scientific Advisory Board

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Oetzel

Scientific Advisory Board

Prof. Sebastian Oetzel is Professor of Business Administration in the Faculty of Business at the Fulda University of Applied Sciences. Since 2018 he has been consulting for Yagora in his role as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board. His main research interests are in the areas of price and promotion optimisation, behavioural biases in marketing (decoy effect, choice overload), marketing analytics and the development of decision support systems.

Before being appointed Professor at the Fulda University of Applied Sciences, he was a Senior Consultant at Yagora from 2013 to 2018. During that time he implemented various new shopper research and analytics methods in collaboration with Andreas Luppold, Managing Partner at Yagora.

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Our team in numbers

2248

years of life experience

13

languages represented

1

Soprano saxophonist

34

realists

28

optimists

12

online beverage shoppers

6

mathematicians, doctors and lecturers

50

owners of customer loyalty card

26

pasta lovers

28

late risers

38

year average age

64

% women

4

heavy metal fans

714

years of professional experience

158

years spent living abroad

34

wine drinkers

36

brand-loyal shoppers

44

beach lovers

5

start-up entrepreneurs

30

bundles of joy

10

active footballers