Maurice Pastoor
CEO/co-owner Data Management Professionals (DMP)
‘Ynvolve helped us think more internationally.’
Maurice Pastoor
Maurice Pastoor can’t exactly remember what happened, but he received a phone call from A Good Friend on a particular day. He had met a certain Martijn Niessen at a birthday party. Nice fellow, said The Good Friend, and just like Maurice, the fellow ‘did something’ in IT. He had the idea Maurice’s DMP and Martijn’s Ynvolve were a good match. Or that they could help each other, one way or another. And if not, The Good Friend knew they would at least be a good match on a personal level.
The Good Friend was right, says Maurice: ‘When I met Martijn there was instant chemistry, and since that day, four years ago, we have been friends. Our companies matched, too. At DMP, we focus on data management: backups, storage, and disaster recovery. We service our clients and take care of them. Ynvolve has a different business model, but we saw the common ground. We may have different expertise, but we can support each other and occasionally pass the ball to one another. It’s funny how that works. Martijn and I like each other, and apparently, that’s why our companies feel the same: it’s a satisfying collaboration… I can tell a story, I know how to explain matters, but he always manages to tighten it up a notch. I am more polite – sometimes embellishing matters too much. Martijn is more of a go-getter, more black-and-white. He may exaggerate sometimes, but he is full of humor and metaphors. He helps my thinking process. For example, we own seven data centers worldwide, for which we rent racks. For a long time, we used to fly in our own people to install equipment and take care of the configurations. Martijn said: let Ynvolve take care of that, so DMP can focus on its core business, managing the data and the environment. He gave us a different perspective. I also learned quite a bit from him in the area of recruitment. Think in a broader sense. Ynvolve helped us think more internationally.
At DMP, we searched for the best Dutchmen in the Netherlands, the best Danes for Denmark, and the best Germans for our German subsidiary. That’s far too traditional. At Ynvolve, they recruit the smartest people from everywhere in the world and bring them to Nijmegen. They all feel very much at home there. I find that very inspiring.’
