From Google to GetYourGuide: Rob Rekrutiak on his new role as CPO

Rob Rekrutiak joined GetYourGuide as Chief Product Officer in March of 2026. We sat down with him to learn more about his first six months, his leadership mindset, and his vision for Product at GetYourGuide. 

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After leading teams at Google Shopping, Lyft, and Gojek, what brought you to GetYourGuide?

“The common thread has been global marketplaces and ecosystems: understanding multiple sides of a marketplace, connecting supply and demand, and building product experiences that create value for each.

At Google Shopping, that meant ads and e-commerce. At Lyft, it was the marketplace and rider side. At Gojek, it expanded into food delivery, grocery, quick commerce, merchant platforms, and even working capital for small businesses. Back at Google, I focused on logistics and delivery. And at GetYourGuide, it’s travel.

What’s kept it interesting is that I’ve never done exactly the same thing twice. Industries change, but the underlying challenge remains: understand the consumer, understand the business partner, and build the products and systems that help them connect.”

With your background in entrepreneurship, you also spend your time mentoring. How do you think this impacts your mindset as a leader?

“My experience in entrepreneurship has shaped me in a few ways. First, it gives you perspective on how much you can do with limited resources. You learn to prioritize the moves that will have the most impact and help you reach the next stage.

It also makes you more hands-on. In startups, you may find yourself doing everything from marketing to operations, including, in my case, loading pallets in a warehouse. That experience helps you appreciate how the whole business works, not just one function.

And mentoring is reciprocal. You learn as much from the people you advise as they do from you. Seeing how others approach challenges gives you new context, and keeps you grounded in the idea that there are always multiple ways to solve a problem.”

Why GetYourGuide?

“Travel felt like a natural next step because it brings together a lot of the marketplace problems I’ve found most interesting: global scale, supply-and-demand complexity, and the opportunity to build meaningful consumer experiences.

What stood out about GetYourGuide was that experiences are not a solved or fully defined category. There’s a strong foundation and a growing business, but also real room to shape what the category means for both travelers and supply partners.

And experiences are ultimately the part of travel people remember: the things they did, the memories they formed, and the connections they made. Flights and transport matter, but they can become commoditized. Experiences are where travel becomes really personal and precious.”

What did relocation actually feel like?

“For us, the move was probably structurally easier than it is for many people. I grew up in Vancouver and have lived and worked in several countries, and my wife also grew up traveling frequently. So, while every move has its complexities, international relocation wasn’t entirely new to us.

Career-wise, the strongest draw was GetYourGuide itself: the founding team, the culture, the marketplace opportunity, and the chance to help scale a global business in a space that aligns closely with my background.

Berlin also felt compelling in its own right. I knew the city reasonably well and liked its international, creative, entrepreneurial energy. Once we looked more closely, the practical factors were there too: strong school options, plenty to offer for different interests, and a city where our family could build a life.

We weren’t necessarily planning to leave Seattle when I started looking for the next role. But the opportunity made the timing feel right. No relocation is perfect, and there are always administrative hassles. The question is whether the opportunity and the life you can build outweigh those frictions.”

GetYourGuide’s relocation cheat sheet

What’s your vision for the Product team at GetYourGuide?

“Six months in, I see a strong foundation: a strong culture, people who genuinely live the Guiding Principles, and a well-developed strategy process that increasingly brings the different parts of the business together.

The biggest opportunity is to build more common ways of working across traveler, supply, marketing, and central services that let us scale impact faster. We already collaborate, but we can create greater consistency in how we build products, especially on marketplace problems that require multiple teams to solve together.

The goal is not to impose one rigid model. It’s to establish a shared core that enables simplicity, repeatability, and consistency while giving teams the room to adapt to their specific contexts.

That balance is important as we scale: enough structure to help us move effectively, but not so much process that it slows us down. We should build, learn from the work, and then scale what proves valuable.”

At Google and Gojek, you utilized ML/AI to drive efficiency. How do you see AI shaping product development at GetYourGuide?

“I see AI as a way to remove mundane coordination and mechanics, so teams can focus more on the work where their expertise matters most.

For PMs, that means getting closer to users and prioritizing the problems worth solving. For UX, it means more focus on craft and the quality of the interaction. For analysts, it means spending less time on data mechanics and more time understanding product and business problems.

It’s not about replacing those roles. It’s about augmenting them and helping teams drive more impact and quality.

In the product itself, there are a few clear opportunities: scaling operational processes on the supply side and in content creation; making search and support smarter; and personalizing not just the content we show, but the way the experience is structured for each user.

For example, rather than asking someone to open three activity pages and hold all the details in their head, AI could help them compare those options directly in a way that fits the decision they are making.”

What’s your favorite GetYourGuide Guiding Principle?

“Building bridges, not islands’ still resonates strongly. Product, and my role specifically, is fundamentally about connecting different functions, perspectives, inputs, and problems to create solutions that deliver value.

That’s been a common thread in what we’ve discussed: creating a shared foundation across teams while preserving the space for people to adapt to their own context. Building bridges is not just about collaboration for its own sake; it’s about making the connections that help us solve important problems together.”

What’s your top tip for successfully building those bridges? 

“Be intentional. Don’t assume collaboration will just happen; show up with a clear view of the connection you’re trying to build, why it matters, and what value it can create.

At the same time, stay open to what you learn. There are always two sides to a bridge, and the outcome may look different from what you initially imagined. The goal is to have enough clarity and structure to move forward while staying agile and learning through the work, rather than over-designing the process up front.”

What does GetYourGuide have to offer senior tech leaders?

“You’d be joining a company with a strong foundation in a category that is still not fully defined or solved.

The opportunity is to help shape what ‘experiences’ mean for travelers, our supply partners, and the category more broadly. You’re working on a global marketplace with real scale and momentum, but also with substantial room to improve discovery, personalization, quality, and the way we connect supply and demand.

For a Product Manager or Designer, that means meaningful problems: helping people find and choose experiences that matter to them, while making it easier for suppliers to build and grow great offerings.

It’s a chance to work on a product that is both commercially complex and deeply human. At the end of a trip, people remember what they did: the experiences, memories, and connections, not just how they got there.”

Let’s talk travel. Where was your last trip, and what’s next?

“I have a yearly hiking trip with several close friends that I’ve been doing for about ten years. This year, we hiked around Zermatt, spent a couple of days in St. Moritz, and took the Glacier Express between the two.

We’re also big travelers as a family. My son is seven and has already lived in the US, Indonesia, Canada, the US again, and now Germany. My daughter is four and a half, and travel has become much easier with her as well. At the end of October, I’ll be in Bangkok for Unlocked, after which I’ll join my wife and kids in Phuket. After that, we’ll head to Taiwan to see family.”

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