Eugénie Fontugne is a Swiss-French operator who runs Strategy & Operations inside the Office of the CEO at Inkitt, the reader-powered, AI-driven publishing startup behind the Galatea app. She built a career that jumped from selling chocolate and flavor at Firmenich to leading community at Global Shapers Geneva, writing about French food and culture for MerciSF in the Bay Area, advising the AI firm VCG.AI, and pulling together a 90-person Lovable x Project Europe hackathon in Stockholm on little more than a walk-around-London hunch. She works where storytelling, product, and operations overlap.
Ali Albazaz is the founder and CEO of Inkitt, a San Francisco-based AI-powered publishing platform that uses reader engagement data and algorithms to identify and publish bestselling fiction. Born in Baghdad and raised in Germany, he bootstrapped Inkitt from a Berlin startup after 140 investor rejections into a $400M+ valued company with 33 million users across three platforms: Inkitt (writer community), Galatea (immersive reading app), and CandyJar (video entertainment). Inkitt has raised $116.8M in total funding, including a $37M Series C led by Khosla Ventures in February 2024.