10 Things You Didn’t Know about Malte Huffman

Malte Huffman is a seasoned businessman. Currently, he is the co-founder as well as the co-CEO of Mondu, which has raised $43 million through its Series A funding round. However, it is important to note that this isn’t Huffman’s first time as an entrepreneur.

1. Went to Montpellier Business School

Education-wise, Huffman went to Montpellier Business School. Unsurprisingly, said institution can be found in Montpellier, which is a French city situated close to the Mediterranean Sea. Montpellier Business School is considered to be an École Supérieure de Commerce, which is a French business school that operates on the same level as universities. Such institutions tend to be quite prestigious. Montpellier Business School is no exception to this rule. In fact, it was founded in 1897, which is enough to make it one of the oldest schools of management that can be found in the whole of Europe.

2. Went to the University of Münster

Later, Huffman went to the University of Münster, which is one of the most famous schools that can be found in Germany. Said institution can trace its roots to a couple of things. One would be the Münster’s Jesuit College that was established in 1588. The other would be a convent of lay sisters called Liebfrauen-Ãœberwasser that was established in 1040. As the story goes, permission for a university was granted by the Pope as well as the Holy Roman Emperor in 1631. However, the University of Münster wasn’t founded until 1780, which was made possible by the funds of the aforementioned convent that was dissolved in 1773.

3. Spent Some Time Working As a Consultant

For a time, Huffman worked as a consultant for Boston Consulting Group. For those who are unfamiliar, this is one of the Big Three, which refers to the three largest management consulting firms that can be found in the entire world when measured on the basis of revenue. The other two would be Bain & Company and McKinsey & Company. Regardless, it seems safe to say that people who work in management consulting have a fair amount of knowledge about management. Something that has presumably proved to be very useful for Huffman when it comes to his own start-ups.

4. Spent Some Time Working in Marketing

After Boston Consulting Group, Huffman went to work in marketing for Zalando GmbH. A statement that makes more sense when one learns that said company is a Germany-based company that sells media time. Presumably, this experience has proven to be very useful for Huffman as well.

5. Co-Founded Dafiti

Huffman spent the 2010s plus a bit of the 2020s working at Dafiti, which is a fashion and lifestyle-focused e-commerce platform that operates in Latin America. This makes sense because he was one of the co-founders of the company.

6. Was a Managing Director For Dafiti

During that time, Huffman was a managing director for Dafiti. Generally speaking, a managing director is a very high-ranking position in a company’s hierarchy, though the occupant of the position is still subordinate to the CEO. They tend to be responsible for day-to-day matters in a way that the CEO isn’t. Furthermore, the managing director is often responsible for liasoning with the company’s shareholders. In fact, it isn’t uncommon for the occupant of the position to be a member of the board of directors.

7. Left Dafiti in March of 2021

Huffman was one of the co-founders who left Dafiti in March of 2021. The other was Philipp Povel, who was serving as the CEO for the company before his departure. Both Huffman and Povel claimed that their departure was motivated by personal reasons. Specifically, they talked about the fact that they had spent about a decade working on their start-up, meaning that it was time for them to focus more on their personal priorities. At the time, Dafiti named its Brazil COO and CFO Sergio Silvestre as the interim CEO while announcing its intentions to name a new CEO by May of 2021. The search for a new CEO took them a bit longer than expected. Still, the end result was that Andre Farber was named as the new CEO of Dafiti in June of 2021.

8. Co-Founded Mondu in August of 2021

Curiously, Huffman and Povel don’t seem to have stood still for very long. After all, they co-founded Mondu in August of 2021, which was just a few months after their departure from Dafiti. Having said that, it is important to note that Mondu is quite different from its predecessor. This can be seen in how their new start-up is a fintech company that seems to be aimed at small and medium-sized companies. Specifically, Mondu provides a buy-now-pay-later offer that is meant to smoothen B2B interactions so that small and medium-sized companies can focus more on their core operations.

9. Currently the Co-CEO of Mondu

This time around, Huffman is a co-CEO. Said arrangement is exactly what it sounds like, which is to say, two CEOs working together to lead a company. It isn’t very common in the English-speaking part of the world. However, it is more common though still not very common in the German-speaking part of the world. In any case, there are circumstances under which co-CEOs can work out very well. For instance, each CEO needs to have their own particular set of responsibilities while still being capable of coming together whenever that proves to be necessary. Given that Huffman and Povel have chosen to co-found another startup after more than a decade of working together, it seems reasonable to speculate that the two do indeed have that kind of teamwork.

10. Believes That There Will Be Increasing Demand For Buy-Now-Pay-Later in Online B2B

Huffman has acknowledged that buy-now-pay-later isn’t a new concept. Specifically, he said that it has been around for offline businesses for decades. However, Huffman believes that the increasing number of businesses moving to the digital sphere means that there will be a corresponding increase in the demand for buy-now-pay-later for online businesses, which is presumably how Mondu plans to prosper in the times that are still to come.

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