GetYourGuide: There and Back Again

Will Gluckin, Head of Global Communications, shares his experience joining, leaving, and re-joining the GetYourGuide team. Learn how strong relationships and growth potential led him on this journey.

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As a communications professional, building and nurturing connections is my bread and butter. It’s a skill that’s served me well in and out of the workplace—whether I’m establishing lasting relationships with influential media partners or with my next-door neighbors. Connection is what I do. 

So it’s no surprise that through fostering relationships, I found my way back to a company I left—GetYourGuide. 

My first adventure with GetYourGuide 

In 2017, I took a leap of faith. I left the career path I’d been on in New York’s agency world to join GetYourGuide as a PR Manager. Although the appeal of a new life abroad played a part in my decision, the wide-open potential for storytelling in this role totally captured my imagination. 

As the company’s first-ever PR professional and the first new hire of the budding Brand team, I had a feeling the road ahead would be full of growth. Moreover, the culture and camaraderie that GetYourGuide provided fueled my passion. By February 2020, I’d become Head of Communications and had helped scale the Brand team to a full-fledged department of more than 30 creative professionals.

However, just one month into my new role, COVID hit, and our communications activities took a drastic turn. There were customers to refund, partners to reassure, and teammates to support through a truly unprecedented experience. With planes grounded and borders closed it was a tough time for the travel-tech industry. The future was uncertain, to say the least.

I learned a lot tackling COVID-era comms for over eight months, but it took a toll on me. I had faith that GetYourGuide would emerge from the crisis and that it would likely be a long uphill climb before we got back to where we were. From a communications perspective, I felt we’d finished writing a difficult chapter of our story. I was ready to start fresh with a blank canvas.  

Keeping the Conversation Going

With the physical world still on hold, I returned to my roots: telling stories about software. I heard about Pitch, a young, fully remote startup building a next-generation presentation tool, and it struck me as the blank canvas I was looking for. I saw a chance to apply everything I’d learned at GetYourGuide and build a brand new communications team from the ground up—again. And with Zoom fatigue taking hold worldwide, I felt Pitch’s product met the moment in a meaningful way. 

Although it was bittersweet to leave GetYourGuide, I was grateful for the lasting personal and professional network I’d built there. Johannes, our CEO and co-founder, was very supportive, even offering to connect me with potential employers. We stayed in regular contact. His guidance proved invaluable as I took on my new role, and I kept sharing my own advice with him now and then, too. 

Flash forward to early 2023. As the world learned to manage COVID and the economic climate shifted, I started to think about what I wanted next in my career. The communications strategy and team I’d built at Pitch were humming along, but I found myself missing those big growth projects. Moreover, as the world started to reconnect in person, it became clear that working in a fully remote environment wasn’t for me. I missed the feeling of being side-by-side with teammates I knew and trusted on a personal level, sharing the experience of creating, winning, and learning from our work together. 

I missed the feeling of being side-by-side with teammates I knew and trusted on a personal level, sharing the experience of creating, winning, and learning from our work together.

Right on cue, Johannes called me up and said he was looking for a new Head of Global Communications to help steer GetYourGuide through its next growth period. It was unexpected, but I knew I had to give the opportunity some serious thought. 

I decided to do my due diligence first, before moving forward with interviews. I called on my old friends at GetYourGuide to ask about their experience over the past few years. I wanted to know what had changed and what had stayed the same to better understand if I’d still be a good fit this time around. I got the impression that the pandemic had catalyzed change at GetYourGuide. Its culture had been tested, and a more ambitious, more resilient company had emerged.

I had my answer. Weighing the pros and cons of rejoining GetYourGuide for another stint, I realized this could be just the next move I was searching for. I threw myself into the recruitment process with everything I had. The company wasn’t in the same place it had been when I left, and I knew I needed to show that I was on a new level, too. 

In the summer of 2023, I decided to trust my gut and rejoin the GetYourGuide journey. 

My “boomerang” tips for fellow returnees

Now, nearly one year into my “boomerang” story, I’m happy to say it was the right decision for me. Here are my two cents to those considering a similar move: 

Lean into the familiarity—but stay open to new practices
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On the one hand, there’s an instant familiarity that makes those little things all the more straightforward: booking meeting rooms, where to grab coffee, and, of course, knowing everyone’s name. But at the same time, certain elements have changed, and you can’t rely on memory alone. Check your understanding of projects, policies, and protocols. 

Keep in mind that you’ve grown as well 

Any second stint isn’t as simple as resuming an old job—it’s a new mission with a company in a more mature phase, and it’s inevitable that you’ve grown and changed too. Consider yourself a new beginner with a fresh perspective and a few new tricks up your sleeve. 

Don’t underestimate the power of connection
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Last but not least, never underestimate the power of personal and professional networks or the judgment of those you’ve worked closely with—they’ve got a valuable vantage point on your potential. Keep those lines of communication open in an authentic way, and trust the “pull” of your network as much as your own drive to push your career forward. You never know who will come calling.