Meet the Team

Merijn is the founder and CEO of SuperYacht Times and provides senior industry counsel across SYT Strategy’s engagements.

He founded SuperYacht Times in 2005 and has spent more than two decades immersed in the global superyacht market. His experience provides a long-term perspective on how the fleet, ownership landscape and wider market have evolved, alongside a direct understanding of how the industry operates in practice.

Francesca is Senior Industry Advisor to SYT Strategy and Editor-in-Chief of SuperYacht Times. Within advisory engagements, she contributes to stakeholder mapping, qualitative market assessment and interpreting industry perceptions.

Through her editorial leadership, Francesca maintains direct relationships with senior stakeholders across the superyacht ecosystem, including shipyards, owners, brokers, marina operators and destination authorities. Her experience provides a first-hand understanding of how businesses and strategic decisions are perceived in the market, and where commercial narratives may diverge from operational reality.

Ralph leads the intelligence function underpinning SYT Strategy’s advisory work. He oversees the analytical frameworks and structured interpretation of fleet, ownership, construction, refit and transaction data used across engagements.

With more than a decade of experience analysing the superyacht market, Ralph’s expertise spans market sizing, demand modelling, yacht utilisation and movement patterns, and competitive benchmarking. His work combines detailed quantitative analysis with a deep industry understanding.

Manuel leads SYT Strategy engagements, advising investors and industry leaders on transactions, growth and commercial performance. He brings a rigorous, hypothesis-driven approach to each project, combining structured analysis with SYT’s proprietary intelligence and direct access to industry decision-makers.

He has more than ten years of experience spanning strategy consulting and senior commercial and operational roles. Before joining SYT Strategy, Manuel worked at Bain & Company and Strategy&, advising clients on commercial due diligence, growth strategy, business-model design and performance improvement across multiple industries.

Manuel holds an MBA from London Business School and a bachelor’s degree in Business Engineering from Universidad del Pacífico.

Nikolett supports SYT Strategy engagements from problem definition and market analysis through to synthesis and recommendation.

Her experience includes commercial due diligence for marina investments and yacht tourism strategy for government stakeholders. Before joining SYT Strategy, she worked in management and technology consulting at Veeva Systems and PwC, contributing to transformation, operating-model and process-improvement projects across the pharmaceutical, energy and technology sectors.

Nikolett holds a master’s degree in Management and Leadership from Corvinus University of Budapest and completed the CEMS Master in International Management programme, including studies at the University of Sydney.