Management Team

Martin Biermann leads a global team of product and IT professionals to deliver smart and innovative solutions in the areas of data management, sourcing and audit, search and booking, and payments for HRS’ global customer base. Biermann is a serial startup entrepreneur and held various technology leadership positions in digital economy companies, including Rocket Internet, Dropbox and Evernote. He is a member of the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Technology Committee and is a regular speaker on digital innovation at global industry events hosted by GBTA and The BTN Group.

To date, Philipp has been responsible for the future ecommerce architecture of the Otto Group. Prior to that, he co-founded and led a B2B2C SaaS company for booking systems in the event industry, where he was responsible for product and technology. Furthermore, in his career as consultant and developer, he implemented various transactional systems for some large enterprises and advised post merger integration and digital transformation projects. 

As Senior Vice President Global Supplier Relations, Lukasz Dabrowski is responsible for HRS partnerships with largest global hotel organizations and connectivity partners. Until late 2020, he was overseeing the entire HRS Asia-Pacific region as SVP based out of Tokyo, developing business opportunities between hotel partners and corporations in HRS Group’s most important growth region – and efficiently managing the impact of the pandemic. Earlier, between 2015 and 2018 Lukasz was in charge of international hotel and connectivity partnerships, operating out of HRS Group HQ in Cologne. He joined the company back in 2010 as Managing Director for the regional office in Warsaw, spearheading the dynamic growth of the Central-Eastern Europe. Prior to becoming an ‘HRS veteran’, between 1997 and 2010 Lukasz was associated with Marriott International as senior commercial leader across multiple European destinations. He’s been a popular speaker and panelist at Business Travel Show, Global Lodging Forum, ACTE and GBTA conventions, Corporate Lodging Forums and other leading industry events worldwide.

As Vice President Customer Delivery & Operations, Sonja Klasen is today responsible for global Operations Teams in HRS working with our hotel partner. Until beginning of 2022, she was working as Director Product and Transformation Management, focusing on internal process optimization in the area of HRS Product Management and Implementation. Earlier, between 2011 and 2018 she was a key stakeholder building up the HRS Procurement Solution. With her teams, she was participating in a broad range of corporate hotel sourcing projects, helping companies to optimize hotel program performance. GBTA named her to serve on its Global Hotel RFP Task Force in 2018. Before joining the company back in 2008, Sonja worked as Project Manager in a Hospitality Consulting Firm and known in the industry through her engagement in VDR and HSMA committees in Germany.

After her master’s degree (ESADE Business School & HEC Paris), Dorothea started her professional journey in consulting. After five years, she decided to join HRS as a project manager in the strategy department in 2016 – already back then convinced of the vision. One of her projects resulted in the creation of a new B2B department, the Centre of Excellence for  strategic customers. She built up and led this team to create new standards for account management, consulting, delivery and operations. Leveraging upon this experience while simultaneously scaling it to all markets, Today she is the responsible Vice President for the global customer delivery. Together with her team spread in 12 markets, they are driving highest customer satisfaction always taking the customer view first. 

Kurt Knackstedt joined HRS as Chief Growth Officer for HRS Pay in June 2021. A globally-respected travel and payment expert, Mr. Knackstedt came to HRS after six years as CEO of Troovo Technologies. Under his leadership, Australia-based Troovo grew its worldwide client base and won awards, including the 2018 “Innovator of the Year” honor for their groundbreaking work on virtual credit cards and automated B2B payment processing. Prior to Troovo, he led the global travel and expense category for Rio Tinto, a prominent mining industry company, from their Singapore location. Mr. Knackstedt is a committed advocate for the managed travel community, having served on the Executive Board of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) for eight years, including a term as President from 2014-17. He has also served in executive roles for American Express, Rosenbluth International and Travelport across his career. A Chicago native, Mr. Knackstedt is based in HRS’ Sydney office, and is a dual citizen of Australia and the USA.

Over the last 18 years, he led global teams and launched numerous software products at scale, either delivered on-premise or as SaaS. He is appointed as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of HRS PAY, the company’s growing and innovative payments business unit. As CTO, Takis is playing a key role in enhancing HRS’ proven payment technology and services, refining the company’s payment platform to facilitate integration on any scale with global and regional corporations. Prior to joining HRS, he was the Group CTO of Profile Software, a premier European Fintech, where led product transformation, launched Digital Banking in a box product, acquired Euronext Centevo, a leading Swedish Fintech, and served as BoD member. Previously, Takis has been appointed as CTO of ATOS Communication and Collaboration Global Business unit delivering real-time collaboration SaaS to 2M+ users of fortune 500 clients. During his Atos tenure, also served as COO Cloud and Managing Director ATOS Greece. In the past 2 decades held several technology leadership positions with Unify, Siemens, and HP. Takis received a Master of Science in Communications Systems Engineering and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronic & Computer Engineering from the University of Portsmouth, UK. He is recognized as a Member of IET (Institute of Engineering & Technology) for his contributions to the technology & engineering society.

– Current role is MD for BaFin regulated payment entity HRS Paysol GmbH

– Member of the senior leadership team HRS PAY with the focus on Finance, Risk and Governance

– Many years of C-level experience as CEO, CFO and COO

– Management responsibility in financial institutions, strategy consulting and special mechanical engineering

– Member of generation X with interest in innovations which make our lives easier and better

Luca De Angelis joined HRS family in 2013 with a variety of increasing management responsibilities and leadership roles from Corporate Sales up to Markets management. After leading the expansion of HRS Group within both the Italian and Spanish market, he was responsible for Southern and Eastern European region acting as Regional Managing Director. Graduated in Business Management and with an Executive Master from ESADE Business School in Barcelona Luca has got more than 15years experience in Travel and Transportation industry holding several senior positions in sales and working for Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Meridiana.

Ana Pedersen, HRS’ Managing Director of Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, joined the company in July 2019.

Ms. Pedersen has worked in managed travel for more than two decades, serving in executive roles for travel management across Australia and the United States. Before joining HRS, she spent two years as Global Director of Sales & Marketing for QBT, a leading Australian TMC. Prior to that, Ms. Pedersen worked for 14 years with BCD Travel, where she attained the role of Vice President – Global Hotel Strategy. During her time with BCD, she worked in three of business travel’s most prominent markets – Australia, Singapore and the United States. Earlier in her career, Ms. Pedersen served in sales and service roles with Qantas Airways. She works in Sydney, overseeing her team of 60+ corporate hotel experts in Australia and New Zealand.

Jason Long oversees a global team of sales and business travel experts, targeting multi-national corporations with significant lodging expenditures to expand HRS sales worldwide. Prior to joining HRS in 2012, Long held various management positions in the travel and technology industries, including for Amadeus IT Group, where he was responsible for the global expansion of Amadeus’ corporate business. He is currently a member and speaker for the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA). Jason Long holds a Bachelor of Engineering (BEng in Electronic Engineering) from King’s College, University of London, and an MBA from IEDE Business School Madrid.