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Tristan Hamish Mackrory, VP of people & talent at Almedia is apologetic. “Sorry, if I look like I’ve got bags under my eyes, it’s probably because I have!” he says with a smile. “We moved offices this week, and I’ve literally spent months visiting every single potential location in Berlin to get exactly what we want! Finally we’ve found what we needed. The fit out is happening as we speak. It’s going to look great.”
But this is one HR professional who doesn’t need to feel contrite though. With a career that is now starting to resemble something of a specialism in exciting start-ups – he was formerly head of talent (Europe) at tech start-up RapidAPI – being busy is the name of the game. When you’re officially Europe’s third fastest-growing company (according to the Financial Times’ FT1000 listing), moving at pace is par for the course. And, despite only joining the business a few months ago, not only has he owned this office move, but he’s helped rebrand the business, develop its new vision and values, created job competencies and equity options for staff; assembled a whole new HR team and recruitment team; oh, and he’s also initiated a mentorship programme for the founder and the rest of the executive team. (And probably lots more in-between).
So what’s the story? Almedia is a trailblazer in what marketers call the Reward-based User Acquisition space. Here clients list their games on Almedia’s ‘Freecash’ platform to reach its large community of gamers. These players earn real-world rewards such as gift cards for brands such as Netflix and Amazon.
It’s a business that now has around 80 staff (it was 40-45 at the start of the year), and aims to have 120 by the end if the year. But in many ways, Almedia is something of a oddity for having a dedicated HR head so early in its lifecycle, and with such (relatively) low numbers of staff. Most firms can normally expect to grow to 200-250 employees before they feel the need to have a head of people – but Mackrory has been brought in early, and not just because it needs to grow its headcount.
Start-ups tend to come with a philosophy for mass hiring; but we want to be more slow, and methodical, and have people we know will stay
“I actually thought the role was a scam!” he recalls, upon hearing about the role [mainly because the company at the time was still named ‘Freecash – Almedia’s rewards app]. “But a recruiter reached out, and I met with the founder Moritz Holländer, and we clicked straight away,” he says. “It was only a short time ago, but already I feel we’ve done lots.”
