about us

ignosi is a privately held Portuguese company founded in 2022 to be the best partner to small and medium businesses in transforming their data into revenue. Founding partners Nuno and Joao garnered years of experience together running a data-as-a-service company, before bringing Merve onboard to revamp the model, reposition the brand and focus on internal and external data monetization for their clients.

These three founding partners come from the consultancy sector and academia, from agency and corporate side, from tech and industry. Natives of Germany and Portugal, they have lived and worked in over ten countries and four continents.

ignosi is a true meritocracy. We pride ourselves in the fact that our exceptional team of data analysts, data scientists, mathematicians, programmers, marketers and communication experts come from diverse cultural backgrounds. They bring a natural level of curiosity and wonder, paired with agility, diligence and thoughtfulness, that allows us to switch perspectives and ask the right questions. Teams are selected according to which individual and team skills best serve our client interest. The goal is always to get the most useful and sustainable solutions – whether that´s actionable insights for the existing business, forecasting, or identifying data driven new revenue sources and partners.on

"Without data you’re just another person with an opinion."

Edwards Deming, Statistician

our founders

Nuno Leite

CEO and Founder

With a degree in journalism, postgrad in multimedia communication and marketing and several executive training programs in management, Nuno is one of Portugal’s leading brand and reputation managers.

Having started off at the Diário de Notícias and O Primeiro de Janeiro, Nuno embraced pioneering scientific journalism for the Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular before venturing out to “the dark side”. He started at GCI, joined A1 Grand Prix of Nations as media officer of the Portuguese team and later switched to Hill + Knowlton Strategies as a director. Before starting his career as an entrepreneur, he was the COO of GCI (Edelman Affiliate). In his time on the agency side, Nuno won several awards for client projects from the European Excellence Awards and Meios & Publicidade or Prémios à Eficácia.

As an entrepreneur, Nuno founded and manages the corporate reputation company Retune. He looks back on over 20 years of working for all sectors and industries ranging from FMCG over retail, technology, associations to healthcare. Nuno´s affinity for data driven business and the perceived lack of tools to deliver against his client’s needs led him to cofound a data-as-as-service agency in 2018 (Datauris). Collecting valuable business insights and business partners, this agency has now evolved into the creation of ignosi.

Nuno is fluent in Portuguese, English and Spanish, loves his mutt Heidi and his trumpet that is calling him to jazz.

more about Nuno

Merve Liebelt

CMO and Founder

Merve started her career while still in college, working at a mobile adtech startup in Berlin. Post graduation she became European PR Manager and Corporate spokesperson for PUMA during the FIFA World Cup in German. She then joined Triumph, the leading global intimate apparel company, where over her 8 year tenure she held several international management roles. After returning from NYC for Triumph, she joined Roeckl, a premium leather company of the German Mittelstand. Merve jumpstarted her own communications consultancy with her move to Lisbon in 2017, with an eclectic mix of clients like Christian Louboutin, XING and Allianz until she became VP and General Manager Europe of JIN, a pan-European digital communications agency.

Merve´s deep understanding of corporate complexity pairs with a strong desire to deliver creative solutions that achieve the medium and long term business goals. The possibility of pairing data driven insights and models with brand and marketing, encouraged Merve to join Nuno and João in founding ignosi, where she holds the role as Chief Marketing Officer.

Merve speaks German, English, Portuguese, dabbles in Spanish and French, is a travel and podcast aficionado and can usually be found enjoying the outdoors with her dog.

more about Merve

João Fialho

CSO and Founder

João majored in Applied Mathematics and added a PhD in Mathematics in 2012 from the University of Évora. After starting as a data and pricing analyst for several multinational companies in Portugal, João rejoined academia as Assistant Professor Overseas in 2012. Since then, he has lived and experienced the vastly different cultures of North America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. And while always on the academic forefront, João never ceased being a doer and entrepreneur. Building the bridge between science and the “real world” via technology has been the driving force of João´s work as a data scientist and engineer. A natural born problem solver, Joao focusses on driving customer-centric models for our clients.

In his spare time, João is an avid mountainbiker and trailrunner. Joao speaks Portuguese, English and math and dabbles in Vietnamese. Truc truc.

more about João