Our team

Ryan is a business professional with broad international experience in strategy and financial consulting. He has lived in North America, Europe & Asia working for global enterprises like Best Buy & ING Group. Since completing his MBA from INSEAD, he has focused on building innovative tech businesses.

Ryan founded gourmetKAZOO to help independent food & wine producers use the internet to build better businesses for themselves. Through a combination of his passion for high quality food and his keen business sense, he is building gourmetKAZOO into the leading online platform connecting the world to independent food & wine producers.

Javier's dedication to building innovative web solutions can only be outdone by his interests in travel and photography. He has been captivated by the challenges of programming ever since he can remember and has acquired an impressive array of experiences spanning several programming languages. Prior to founding gourmetKAZOO, Javier was professionally developing websites across various domains and was specifically focused on applying techniques to enrich the experience of end-users.

Javier co-founded gourmetKAZOO in order to tie his passion for web development into a project closer to his heart. He is leading the teams' effort to build an adaptive platform utilizing the latest trends in social media in order to effectively drive sales in specialty markets. If you can't find him behind his computer, he is likely off cooking an elaborate meal or enjoying the simple pleasures in a glass of fine red wine.

Gianpiero is from Italy and like all Italians...simply loves enjoying the finest things in life! and what's finer than Italian gourmet food and wine? He comes from the beautiful region of Piedmont where some of the finest wines of the world are produced: Barolo, Barbera, Dolcetto and many others.

His roots took him since he was a kid to spend "many Septembers" picking the grapes of those great wines during the harvest. He then carried this passion for wine with him around the world in his extensive international background on board luxurious cruise ships traveling in 81 countries in all 7 continents. He managed his own on board revenue department and provided the ultimate level of service to prestigious and demanding guests.

Today, Gianpiero has a dream: getting as many people as possible to enjoy those same flavours of his childhood and then help making gourmetKAZOO the world best artisan food & drink market online!

Oliver is a self-confessed foodie from the South Coast of England. Hungry to combine his interests in business and food, gourmetKAZOO offered Oliver the chance to contribute to the successful launch of a new and exciting concept. He also saw it as an opportunity to promote British produce on an international level, hoping that the high quality of its unique, artisan produce will prove that the UK & Ireland have much to offer the rest of the food loving world.

Oliver is currently an undergraduate at the University of York, reading English and Related Literature. He wishes to convert to law after graduation and pursue a career as a commercial lawyer. His favourite foodie past-time is to go to his local deli, find a spot amongst the beautiful South Downs, and munch his way through a picnic with friends. His foodie destination outside of the UK is Italy, preferably drinking red wine and watching the sun go down over the Tuscan hills.

Damien is French, born and raised in Paris at the crossroads of flavours. One of his favourite hobbies is dining in restaurants, and the very fine ones s'il vous plaît ! Traveling a lot aroud the world, he developed a keen sense of taste for foreign foods and wines. Lately he discovered the outstanding products of Ireland and Spain through friends he met there. But France is never out of his sight and he admits that what he misses the most when he's abroad is a good old fashioned bistrot' steak tartare and a glass of Pouilly.

For Damien, food is one of life's greatest pleasures, and he was trained at a very young age how to appreciate food by his grand parents, two farmers living in Normandy. They initiated their grand son to the art of cooking with the best products, those you find by searching deeply in the countryside, by buying them direcly from the original producers. When he learned about gourmetKAZOO, Damien was instantly attracted to the idea of promoting his country's products throughout Europe.

Joan is from Spain, the El Penedès area to be exact. He grew up surrounded by vineyards, and of course, living the busy September harvests. Ever since a child, he has grown up enjoying the fresh products grown by his grandfather. This carries over to today, where he still appreciates the value of good meals made with the highest quality products.

He is a passionate about the culture and amazing array of traditional products made in his country, from the Jamón Ibérico to the finest olive oil. Simple things that make our lives better.

When he first heard about gourmetKAZOO, he thought it was a great opportunity for the best small producers, to be known and to be recognized for their hard work and everyday effort. And equally so for the people who love good food. Both parties can meet under the same umbrella and share experiences.

Miguel lives in Oporto, Portugal; home to the famous port wine. Since he was very young, his palette has been in training to appreciate the authentic flavors of local products like wine, cheese and olive oil.

He studied business management at a local university where he decided to analyze the regional specialty gourmet shop segment for his very first project. Later, his final project was about the strategy of a local family owned chocolate company.

When he heard about gourmetKAZOO, he realized that it was an innovative solution that could help the small producers in Portugal connect with the world so that the flavors of his childhood would have a chance to spread all across Europe.