/PRESS RELEASE/ Maciej Kraus, an internationally renowned pricing expert, has joined Competera's advisory board. Currently a partner at venture fund Movens Capital and Stanford guest lecturer in pricing, earlier Maciej served as Head of Sales Strategy and Revenue Optimization at PwC following the acquisition of his pricing startup. 

“Joining Competera is a well-thought-out decision. After looking into its offer, I’ve realized that the company is ahead of the market by three crucial parameters," comments Maciej. 

"First of all, unlike most of the similar businesses, Competera offers a bridge between analytics and its implementation with the help of ready-to-use insights and frameworks, in addition to pure data. Secondly, Competera educates users on the ultimate goal behind using the software, as well as the best practices on how to use the tool for the best results. It’s vital as price optimization requires teamwork. The lack of attention to the team usually means that category managers still use Excel to calculate prices despite having the best software at their fingertips, while the retailer’s investment is wasted. Thirdly, the implementation is lightweight and fast. Competera’s time-to-result is three months.” 

“What’s equally important is that Competera’s case studies with industry leaders like UK-based Wiggle prove that its price optimization software works in real life. All of this made me join Competera’s advisory board.” 

Alexandr Galkin, CEO and co-founder of Competera, says: “We are honoured to have Maciej join our advisory board. It is a real credit to the Competera team to be validated and trusted by such a respected industry figure. Our company will benefit hugely from his excessive strategic experience not only in retail per se but in pricing in general.”

He adds: “Our mission has been to navigate enterprise retail to optimal prices and recovered profits. After years of tireless and extremely successful tech development, Competera has created a comprehensive ML-backed pricing platform with lightweight integration. It allows pricing and category managers to make incredibly complex pricing decisions easily and fast to ensure that the entire assortment is priced optimally and all the necessary business goals of the retailer are reached.”  

“As retail is going through a period of rapid transformation, including digital transformation, price is becoming the main interface between the buyer and seller. As a result, price optimization is turning into a primary profit generation lever for retailers. Thus, Competera provides a great opportunity for retailers to thrive in the new reality,” Alexander summarizes.

About Maciej Kraus 

As an experienced pricing expert with over 15 years of experience under the belt, Maciej Kraus did 100+ projects in B2B and B2C in 40+ countries. He is a lecturer at the Faculty of Management at Warsaw University, a guest lecturer at many respected schools like Stanford, LBS and Kellog, Ph.D. in pricing, a TEDx speaker and a published author of two books on sales strategy and pricing featured on Amazon. 

Maciej built pricing and revenue management startup FernPartners and sold it to PwC in 2016. At PwC, Maciej served as Head of Sales Strategy and Revenue Optimization.

Currently, Maciej is a partner at Movens Capital, a VC fund oriented on supporting tech companies focusing on European markets.  

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