Sara Cato Meyer

She was born into a Jewish family in Amsterdam. Her father was Moritz Meyer (1865–1906); her mother, Sophie Meyer-Philips (1868–1955), was a cousin and a niece of the founders of the Philips lightbulb factory, later the Philips Company in Eindhoven. Yella Rottländer's grandfather is Selma's brother, Justus Meyer.

She started work at the age of 18 and for the first ten years was a shorthand typist. In 1923, she and Annette Monasch took over the Holland Typing Office (HTO), a company that provided typing and copy services, as well as being one of the first employment agencies in the Netherlands, providing shorthand typists, and later selling typewriters.