Personio Enhances Global Employee Participation Program with Expert Support from YPOG

Munich, July 22, 2025 – Personio, a leading European HR platform provider for small and medium-sized businesses, has further strengthened its commitment to employee ownership with a comprehensive restructuring of its global employee participation program. 

Supported by the legal expertise of YPOG and the reward expertise of EquityPeople, the new structure is designed to offer Personio employees across multiple jurisdictions attractive participation opportunities, while ensuring that compliance and consistency is embedded into Personio’s Total Reward Philosophy at every step.

“At Personio, we believe that true employee ownership is fundamental to building a company together—and our enhanced equity program is a direct reflection of that belief,” said Lenke Taylor, Chief People Officer at Personio. “As a company founded in Germany, we saw an exciting opportunity to be early adopters of new tax regulations that benefit our employees. This provided the momentum to update our entire equity program, making it even more competitive and relevant for Personios across all markets where we operate.”

Personio’s newly enhanced program introduces a flexible, multi-component structure for its 1,800 employees across Europe and the U.S. This includes innovative equity participation options for German employees—leveraging deferred taxation under Section 19a of the German Income Tax Act—and the international deployment of restricted stock units (RSUs). The result is a future-proof, tax-efficient solution that enables Personio to attract, reward, and retain top talent globally.

The project’s complexity required internal stakeholders and external advisors to partner across the globe to ensure an employee-centric and legally compliant rollout of the program—no matter where team members are based.

“Successfully rolling out our new Employee Participation Programs across six jurisdictions within just six months was no small undertaking, and we are thrilled by the acceptance and enthusiasm shown by employees. We are pleased to offer tax benefits to our German employees following the extension of the section 19a income tax act in Germany at the end of 2024, as well as to our international employees with a new offering of restricted stock units,” said Malgosia Zietara-Miller, General Counsel at Personio. “Success is a team sport, and this was an outstanding  cross-functional collaboration.”

Johannes Janning, Partner at YPOG, added “It was a pleasure to work alongside Personio’s legal, tax, accounting, and HR teams on this ambitious project. The new structure not only sets a precedent for German start-ups and scale-ups, but also raises the bar for employee participation in equity schemes across the European venture landscape.”

Spela Prijon, Co-Founder at EquityPeople, noted “Personio had a well thought-through option plan right from the start. We concentrated on creating and modeling equity grant strategies that matched their evolving business and international talent goals, and the Personio team’s expertise and insights made collaborating with the team especially rewarding!”

About Personio

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Munich, Personio is Europe's leading intelligent HR platform company for small and medium-sized enterprises. Its all-in-one platform helps HR teams digitize and automate core processes such as recruiting, employee management, and payroll. With 15,000 customers and more than 1,800 employees, Personio is one of the most valuable tech companies in Europe. The company operates offices in Munich, Berlin, London, Dublin, Madrid, Barcelona, Amsterdam, and New York.

For further information: www.personio.com

About YPOG

YPOG stands for You + Partners of Gamechangers – forward-thinking legal and tax advice.  

Supporting companies that are focused on emerging technologies, YPOG embraces change as an opportunity to develop cutting-edge solutions. The YPOG team offers comprehensive expertise in the areas of Funds, Tax, Transactions, Corporate, Banking, Regulatory + Finance, IP/IT/Data Protection, Litigation, and Corporate Crime + Compliance + Investigations. YPOG is one of the leading law firms in Germany for venture capital, private equity, fund structuring, and the implementation of distributed ledger technology (DLT) in financial services. Both the firm and its partners are regularly recognized by renowned national and international publications such as JUVE, Best Lawyers, Chambers and Partners, Leaders League, and Legal 500. YPOG is home to more than 150 experienced attorneys, tax advisors and tax specialists as well as a notary, working across offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, and Munich. 

About EquityPeople

We began as equity specialists: repairing misaligned equity plans, building high impact allocation strategies and turning equity from a misunderstood perk into a reason your best people stay. But equity alone isn’t enough. Today, we design total reward strategies that bring together cash, equity and performance incentives to proactively drive retention, performance and investor confidence. Whether you're rebalancing your equity system post-raise, preparing for VC/PE diligence or an IPO, or find yourself competing with public and mature tech companies for senior talent, we help you align rewards with your business and talent strategy.