Possessing over 10 years of experience and a proven history as an influential start-up CEO, Eugen Brikcius is a result-oriented professional and a natural entrepreneur. His previous companies have been successfully exited to the likes of Alibaba and Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Holdings in the GCC and he is currently exploring his latest venture – lechef – a first-in-the-region concept set to transform workplace dining across Saudi Arabia (KSA) by providing easy access to fresh, healthy and tasty meals through smart canteens.
Having relocated to the Middle East more than a decade ago, Eugen began to observe challenges in the workplace dining environment wherever he went. He noticed that valuable time was usually wasted by figuring out lunch plans at the office premises, thereby leading to decreased productivity with off-site lunches often overrunning break time limits. Coupled with limited access to nutritious meals, the obstacle was clear to see. Consequently, his entrepreneurial nature kicked in and made it his mission to solve this problem.
As the Founder of lechef, he is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the business, including developing and implementing overall strategy, building and leading the firm’s team, raising capital, and establishing valuable partnerships with stakeholders.
With an inherent ability to forward plan, and support corporate growth, Eugen has led other organizations to raise capital, prosper, expand staff and achieve success before founding lechef.
Prior to lechef, he was the Global Managing Director of Foodics – a leading restaurant operations and payment technology company in the MENA region – where he was instrumental in coordinating, organizing and manage the firm’s overall global strategy, while serving as a key liaison between countries offices and the global support teams.
He was also Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Rocket Internet’s Middle Eastern ride-hailing venture Jeeny for almost 9 years with a career path that spanned new business development and active corporate leadership. At the firm he helped raise over EUR 13 million in investment capital and a team strength of over 300 across its business and operating GCC geographies in KSA and technology hub in Pakistan. He led the company to build a reputation on paired economical ride-hailing options for both drivers and passengers between 2014-2023 and also led the firm to re-design its app and pivot by establishing large-scale delivery partnerships with companies during COVID-19 pandemic. Jeeny even reached its profitability stage under Eugen’s leadership.
Having also served as CEO of the UAE-based online shopping portal, Wadi.com, Eugen concentrated on internal growth during his tenure with them. His commitment along with his colleague helped the firm pivot its e-commerce business into a grocery business while supporting employment growth across the operation to build a team of 1,000 in UAE and KSA. This contribution supported the firm being acquired by UAE- based Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) Holdings.
Earlier, Eugen worked with Rocket Internet, an incubator based out of Berlin that specializes in building, developing, and operating internet-based businesses. He worked alongside Lazada, one of the firm’s ventures and a global e-commerce firm with majority operations in Southeast Asia. After Eugen’s contribution to its growth and having moved on to work with other ventures under the umbrella, this was later sold to Alibaba Group for USD 3.2 billion.
Initially in his career, Eugen established Japanese-owned global e-commerce and online retailer, Rakuten’s presence in Austria. Prior to that, he held roles with Bwin Interactive Entertainment AG where he started his initial foray into e-commerce and internet-based services, and held a Country Manager role with Austrian Media company Echo Medienhaus gaining insight into the publishing industry.
Fluent in three languages, English, German and Czech, while advanced in French, Eugen is a natural-born global entrepreneur consistently one step ahead at all times. With a finger on the pulse, Eugen relocated to Middle East almost a decade ago to focus on e-commerce business anticipating the regional growth and evolution, while eventually decoding the mystery of workplace dining in KSA with lechef.
Through lechef Eugen aims to boost business productivity and promote workplace wellbeing by encouraging employees to stay on workplace premises while enabling the consumption of nutritious meals through its smart canteens. The startup’s unique tech solutions offer easy scaling to cater to large workplaces making it suitable for various industries including healthcare, education, construction, government institutions and more. By creating thoughtfully curated healthy food and combining it with a tech-driven seamless meal selection experience through its smart canteens, Eugen and the lechef team are on the cusp of reinventing workplace dining in the MENA region for the better.
