The people and Virtual Ambassadors behind Teekonda journeys

Behind every Teekonda journey

The people and AIs behind Teekonda

A small team of innovators reinventing premium group travel. Destinations chosen with care, experiences built to be premium at every step, and the technology to help communication in a creative way: Virtual Ambassadors — AI characters who travel the world showing how each journey comes together, just like in a television series.

Team Tour Leaders Virtual Ambassadors

The Team

Who’s behind the journeys

Four people, four different starting points: group travel, innovation, communication, and endurance sport, all brought together by the same question: what actually makes a trip stay with you?

Travel Experience & Group Dynamics

Marco Pugliese

Marco Pugliese began his journey in travel on the front line: working as a group-trip leader for one of the major players in the small-group travel industry, accompanying travelers across different countries and cultures. In those years on the road, constantly navigating group dynamics, expectations and emotions, a question stayed with him: what truly makes a travel experience unforgettable rather than just another trip?

From that question, he started to look at travel through a wider lens. His hands-on experience in group travel is complemented by formal training in travel management and a cross-disciplinary background that spans communication, media and technology. Along the way, he has also led and supported several startup initiatives, strengthening his ability to move from insight to execution in fast-changing environments.

This mix allows him to read complex contexts, understand what travelers actually value and translate those insights into experiences that feel authentic, well-paced and emotionally resonant.

Travel Professional & Certified Technical Divemaster

Umberto Gabriele Scudo

Umberto Gabriele Scudo is first and foremost a field-tested travel professional. Over the past years, he has led and coordinated international groups across demanding destinations, managing complex logistics, handling the unexpected, and navigating group dynamics with calm, clarity, and consistency. This hands-on experience in the travel sector gives him exactly the operational awareness Teekonda needs to design trips that are not only inspiring on paper, but robust and reliable in reality.

His background as a Chemistry graduate with top honours and a solid career in sales management has taught him that results come from method, while long-term success depends on relationships. He brings this double focus on structure and trust into Teekonda’s operations: rigor in planning, empathy in managing travelers and partners.

A certified Technical Divemaster, as well as a photographer, videomaker, and seasoned traveller in challenging environments, Umberto has developed the kind of practical versatility that only comes from being on the ground. He knows that the line between a smooth journey and a stressful one is often drawn by details no one notices, because someone has already taken care of them.

Innovation Manager & Data Journalist

Marcello Peluso

Marcello Peluso leads Teekonda with the same mindset he brings to every innovation challenge: understand the context better than anyone else, before anyone else.

An ISO UNI 11814-certified Innovation Manager with over 25 years of experience in digital transformation, customer engagement, and data-driven market intelligence, he has helped companies and startups design, launch, and scale innovation initiatives across Italy, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Saudi Arabia. He co-founded CoffeeBI, a data-intelligence company serving the global coffee industry, and has worked with ventures such as Eyra Ltd in Switzerland, contributing to innovative digital solutions and advanced research methodologies.

Alongside his professional career, he has cultivated a deep passion for travel, storytelling, and cross-cultural exchange, collaborating with international publications and radio projects.

Coach & Technical Leader, Italian Triathlon Federation

Stefano Davite

Stefano Davite is, first of all, a professional of outdoor and movement-based experiences, someone who has spent years designing and living the kind of journeys Teekonda wants to offer. With an international career in cross triathlon and XTERRA competitions, he has travelled and raced in natural environments where preparation, safety, and adaptability are non-negotiable, translating directly into how he thinks about real-world itineraries and traveller experience.

As a certified coach and technical leader within the Italian Triathlon Federation, he has trained athletes and led programmes in highly demanding contexts, learning to read people, manage risk, and structure step-by-step progressions. His relationship with nature is structural rather than aesthetic: years spent immersed in landscapes that set their own rules have shaped his idea of what a meaningful experience should be.

Stefano is the guardian of the product: he defines the quality, pacing, and logic of each journey, ensuring it is both emotionally engaging and operationally solid. He doesn’t just ask what to offer, but why, how, and what it should leave behind for those who take part in it.

Profile

AI-crafted storytellers

Virtual Ambassadors

No two Teekonda journeys are ever quite the same, which means no single story could ever do justice to more than one of them. The Virtual Ambassadors are our answer: eight characters brought to life with AI, each built around a place, a craft and a particular way of noticing the world. They don’t describe an itinerary so much as embody its spirit, because what stays with a traveller is never only the landscape, but who they became while crossing it. Think of them as storytellers for the journeys still to come, a way of feeling a destination before a single bag is packed.

Photographer

James Ashworth

London & Edinburgh, United Kingdom Instagram

I spent years photographing conflict before turning my camera toward something quieter, the small, human moments of travel. Now I bring that same attention to detail to Teekonda’s small-group journeys. After forty countries, I still can’t reliably find my way out of a train station.

Travel Journalist & Guide

Chiara Bellini

Bologna, Italy Instagram

For years I told the world’s stories as a travel journalist, almost always alone, until I realised the most beautiful place isn’t enough if you have no one to share it with. Today I guide Teekonda travellers, convinced that real luxury is authenticity, not showing off. Always halfway packed.

Sommelier & Food Writer

Elena Vidal

Barcelona, Gràcia, Spain Instagram

I was a sommelier and food writer before discovering that the most memorable trips are tasted, not just seen. With Teekonda, I bring that same passion for wine and good food to every small group I travel with. I always taste the dish before photographing it, which is why it’s never whole in my pictures.

Travel Writer

Camille Rousseau

Lyon, France Instagram

A former literature teacher turned travel writer, I love places that reveal themselves slowly. With Teekonda, I guide small groups toward an authenticity that isn’t performed. It’s lived. I live near an old bookshop, and I lose my favourite pen constantly. I keep a spare in every suitcase.

Group Operations

Klaus Bergmann

Hamburg, Germany Instagram

For twenty-two years I was a structural engineer: bridges, cranes, big plans. At forty-seven, I realised I was better at planning other people’s journeys than my own. At Teekonda, I make sure every small group runs smoothly, down to the last detail. I’d rather sketch a technical detail than photograph it.

Travel Blogger

Anastasia Orlova

Saint Petersburg, Russia Instagram

I danced professionally for years before becoming a travel blogger, but the training stayed with me: the same precision, the same attention to detail. With Teekonda, I guide small groups toward the beauty that isn’t always obvious at first glance. I judge every city by how walkable it is.

Storyteller & Host

Nuno Fortes

Alfama, Lisbon, Portugal Instagram

I spent more than twenty years hosting travel programmes on television. These days I do the same thing without a camera in between, just me and the people I meet. I can’t help striking up a conversation with a stranger. I usually know their whole life story before we say goodbye.

Travel Blogger

Mari Tamm

Tallinn, Estonia Instagram

I was a product designer before I became a travel blogger, and the designer’s eye never really left. With Teekonda, I guide small groups to places where less means more. I’ll admit it: I judge every hotel by its interior design first.