# Pini Yakuel

> Pini Yakuel is the Israeli co-founder and CEO of Optimove, a customer-marketing software company that grew out of an analytics consultancy started with Shachar Cohen in 2009. Educated at Tel Aviv University, he financed development through consulting before raising outside growth capital, expanded the business internationally, and now advocates Positionless Marketing: giving marketers tools to work across data, creative, and optimization tasks.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Optimove
- **Organizations:** Optimove, Mobius Solutions
- **Nationality:** Israeli
- **Education:** BSc in Industrial Engineering, Tel Aviv University, MSc in Industrial Engineering and Management; operations research focus, Tel Aviv University
- **Known for:** Built a customer-analytics consultancy into an international customer-marketing software business., Led Optimove through its $20 million first outside funding round in 2016 and $75 million Summit-led investment in 2021., Introduced the Position-less Marketer concept at Optimove Connect in March 2024.

## Career timeline

- **2009** — Started the customer-analytics consultancy Mobius Solutions with Shachar Cohen, preceding Optimove’s software business.
- **2012** — Established the Optimove software business; continued as CEO.
- **2016** — Moved to New York for US expansion; Optimove raised its first outside financing, $20 million from Israel Growth Partners.
- **2018** — Wrote that almost half the leadership team came from inexperienced early hires.
- **2021** — Optimove announced a $75 million investment led by Summit Partners.
- **2024** — Introduced the Position-less Marketer concept at Optimove Connect on March 20.
- **2025** — Optimove repositioned around Positionless Marketing.
- **2026** — Announced an agreement to acquire Smartico with independent operations; continued developing Optimove’s AI marketing approach.

## Achievements

- Built a customer-analytics consultancy into an international customer-marketing software business.
- Led Optimove through its $20 million first outside funding round in 2016 and $75 million Summit-led investment in 2021.
- Introduced the Position-less Marketer concept at Optimove Connect in March 2024.

## Latest updates

- **2026-09** — In a September 29 article, Yakuel described marketing work inside Optimove, through connected external AI assistants, and through custom applications, with campaign approval remaining with marketers.
- **2026-04** — Optimove announced a signed agreement to acquire Smartico on April 6; the announcement specified continued independent operations and founder leadership for Smartico.
- **2025-01** — Appeared on The iGaming Leader podcast with Leo Judkins on January 8 to discuss building Optimove and evolving as a leader.

## Links

- Website: https://www.optimove.com/resources/blog/author/pini-yakuel
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/piniyakuel/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/Pini_Yakuel

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/pini-yakuel
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-10-13