After only one and a half years at TMC Dutch employeneur Noud van Besouw has already been promoted to project leader at Bosch. He’s also heading TMC’s Smart Industry Taskforce competence group and is on the verge of completing a full-time Master in Supply Chain at the University of Tilburg. It goes without saying that the Employeneurship model fits this entrepreneurial engineer like a glove.

Love at first sight may be the best way to describe the relationship between Noud van Besouw and TMC. Spark flew the moment they met and those sparks have since grown into a successful business marriage with the employeneur and the consultancy firm complementing each another in more than one way.

“From the very first conversation I had with TMC during the last year of my university studies we both knew that we wanted to join forces,” Noud explains. “I had a desire to work for a consultancy because I wanted to experience different companies. But unlike many other consultancies TMC didn’t start bragging about the clients they have and what they’re able to offer me. Instead they asked me what my interests were and where I wanted to go in my career. That approach really appealed to me. It was informal and people-oriented.”

Budding project leader

Noud joined the Manufacturing Support business cell and after four weeks was able to start his first project at Bosch Transmission Technology in Tilburg. As a proto engineer he headed a small team of operators that worked on building a handmade prototype. “For an entry-level job it was a pretty responsible position,” says Noud. “I was involved in planning, quality control and maintaining contacts with suppliers.”

Bosch was so pleased with his work that when his job ended after a year and a half they immediately promoted him to project leader for a new project. “One year ago I never could have dreamed that I would already be given a chance as a budding project leader,” Noud beams. “For TMC it was also a confirmation that it had been a good match.”

Dutch television

In the future Noud would like to develop himself further as project leader. With sufficient experience he eventually wants to start his own company as an independent consultant, his preferred sector being Smart Industry. “The ability to monitor a distant factory in India with just your mobile phone is something that has always fascinated me. On the one hand Smart Industry is quite a vague term and everybody always says they want to be ‘smart’. But I enjoy the challenge of exploring the opportunities it offers, since they are virtually endless.”

To prepare for that ambition right from the beginning of his tenure at TMC Noud has joined the Smart Industry Taskforce, a competence group of passionate employeneurs aiming to land new contracts for TMC in Smart Industry. “Our team of like-minded engineers is able to tackle issues for companies that lack the knowledge themselves,” Noud explains. In October he took over the role of the taskforce’s project leader. This May Dutch television channel RTL-Z will produce an item about the taskforce, which Noud hopes will lead to a stream of new assignments.

A dream and an idea

The pandemic also gave Noud the opportunity to follow a full-time Master in Supply Chain at the university of Tilburg, which he eagerly grasped. Noud: “Because of corona everything was offered online, which meant I could do the Master in my own time. TMC has paid part of the tuition through their training budget. I’m almost finished and only have my thesis left to write, but because I just started a new project I’m postponing that for later.” With the Master under his belt perhaps he could someday contribute to the recently established Supply Chain business cell. “At the moment I’m really comfortable at Manufacturing Support,” he adds.