”AN EXCEPTIONAL PRODUCT IS DRIVEN BY AN EXCEPTIONAL TEAM“
Some companies grow out of a garage. vivenu grew out of Düsseldorf. Founded in 2018, vivenu set out to build what the live events industry was missing: a ticketing platform that gives organizers full control over their brand, their data, and their revenue.
The connection to the Future Tech Fest goes back a few years. When Scale-up.NRW brought us into Batch #4, we became part of a community of founders who were all working hard on problems in their own spaces. vivenu has powered the ticketing for FTF ever since, not just as a service provider, but as a fellow member of the Düsseldorf startup community. For us, the Future Tech Fest means something different depending on how you look at it. As a community, it is where founders find each other. As a platform, it is where ideas get challenged by people who have no reason to be polite about it. As a stage, it is where vivenu gets to show what eight years of building actually looks like in practice.
And amazing things have happened in these 8 years. vivenu today powers 1,000+ organizers across 50+ countries, from the Grammy Awards and the Golden Globes to FC Schalke 04, Stanford Athletics, and the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa. The platform processes more than a billion of tickets every year, and the team, now more than 200 people across six offices in Düsseldorf, Darmstadt, New York, Paris, Zurich, and Tampa, is growing fast.
Katja Sankowski joined vivenu in April 2026 as the company's first VP People. With over 20 years of HR experience scaling high-growth companies, including tonies® and Surplex, she knows what it takes to build a culture that attracts and keeps the best talent.
„Building a high-performance culture is not something that happens only inside the office. It happens at the moments where your values become visible to the outside world“
Katja, you just joined vivenu as VP People. What drew you to the company?
vivenu is at exactly the stage I find most exciting: fast growth, real ambition, and a product that people genuinely believe in. What struck me in my first few weeks was the capability and drive within the global team. An exceptional product is driven by an exceptional team and my job now is to make sure those foundations scale with the company and that vivenu stays a place where ambitious people can do their best work.
How do events like FTF fit into that?
Building a high-performance culture is not something that happens only inside the office. It happens at the moments where your values become visible to the outside world. For a company that is growing across six offices and multiple markets simultaneously, events like FTF are exactly where that happens. They are where you connect with the people who share your ambition and where the next great hire might be sitting in the audience.
For founders and talent in the Düsseldorf start-up scene, what makes vivenu a compelling place to work right now?
The timing, honestly. vivenu is at the stage where the foundations are strong, the product is proven, and the growth is real, but there is still so much to build. That combination does not come around often. You get the energy and pace of a startup with the credibility and reach of a company that already powers some of the world's most recognized live event brands. And you get to do that from Düsseldorf. For anyone who wants to be part of something that is still being shaped, this is that moment.
Picture: Leonhard Koall, paint_the_town_studios
