Buyers World Talent
Buyers World Talent
Send me a role

High-tech & manufacturing · Machine building · Maritime & offshore · EPC · Energy

I find buyers and engineersfor the roles where engineering meets procurement.

A commercial judgement and a technical one, in the same person. I have worked both sides: first I found them, then I did the buying myself. Which is why I recognise who can carry that work.

Send me 1 role See how it works Reply within 1 working day
500,000 people across the procurement and engineering communities I built and run, plus the ones I can simply call. That is where a search starts, not on a job board.

278,000in the Buyers World procurement community, the largest, and 25,000 in engineering

18years building my own companies, and recruitment and search before that

3posts and announcements a week into those communities

5countries lived and worked in

01 / Where I come from

Work with someone who understands the process and has run it himself.

Maurice (MAC) van den Berk
Maurice (MAC) van den Berk · Buyers World Talent

18 years building my own companies, every one of them from zero. BYD as strategic partner. Leading robotics manufacturers. Tencent, one of China's largest technology groups. Procurement and business development run end to end myself: qualifying factories in China, winning government tenders, chartering bulk carriers, loading aircraft when the sea was too slow, taking 1 company to €50M in revenue. Before that, placing senior buyers and engineers across technical manufacturing, EPC, shipbuilding, oil and gas and energy.

Every sector was new to me on day 1. The work never was. Qualifying factories, persuading subcontractors, finding the best specialist in a field I did not know: it comes down to the same thing every time. Working out who can really do it, then getting them on board. With companies, and with the people I had to go and find.

In every one of those companies the decision was mine, and so was the risk. Which is why I know what a wrong hire costs: not from a report, but because I have paid for them myself. And I hear it straight away when someone knows the work mainly from theory.

When someone tells me they managed €40M of spend, I know what that work actually involved. And when they say they qualified a factory, I know what they had to look at.

Tell me who you need. I will find them.

Trained in HR, in procurement at NEVI, and in electrical engineering.

02 / Services

3 ways to hire. 1 person behind all of them.

There is a fourth way: hire me as your interim talent lead

The offer

Send me 1 role.

Give me 1 week and you get an honest read on it.

  • A market map: who exists in your region and where they sit today
  • A straight answer on whether the role is fillable as written, and what to change if not
  • If the profile is scarce, I think with you about which other sector or market the person who can do this work might come from
  • No names, no invoice. If it is useful we talk; if not, you keep the map
Email me the role Book a 15-minute call

03 / How it works

4 steps, first call to day 90.

The person you speak to is the person who does the work.

01

Introduction, 15 minutes

We go through the role: what this person has to fix, who they have to get on with, and what stalls while the seat is empty. If it fits, we book a longer call.

02

Search and approach

I call the people who fit, including the ones who are not looking. And what I hear on the way, you hear too: who is moving, where they sit now, and what your offer is up against.

03

You get candidates

A short list. For each candidate: what they can do, how they work, and what they have not done yet.

04

Offer, and the first 90 days

I take the broad line with the candidate, you settle the details internally. Then I call you both at day 30, 60 and 90.

04 / In practice

I have filled these roles. And run them.

    First for clients, then for my own companies: from procurement and QC to sales, business development, marketing, support and operations management.

    05 / Selected work

    Years of running my own companies. This is what that actually meant.

    Each of these started as a concept and nothing else. Every piece of the puzzle had to be found, and I found most of them myself. That is where the eye for people comes from.

    Smart Life · Medical supply · NL, BE, SE

    Government tenders in a pandemic

    A full operating business stood up in under a month. Factories qualified in China, tests validated by the RIVM, places won on government framework contracts. Then millions of syringes, and the filter tips the labs could not source anywhere. Without them their PCR robots stopped.

    What I ran myselfSpotting the tenders · qualifying factories in China and walking them myself · setting up inspection and QC from scratch · regulation and certification · lab validation · contract negotiation · air freight when sea was too slow · millions of units · dealing with the ministry · building the team

    Why it belongs hereI had to persuade subcontractors far larger than us to back an unknown, in 3 weeks. Same job as convincing a good candidate to leave a safe one.

    Buyers World · Solar distribution · Benelux

    Zero to €50M with a team of 2

    BYD was an unknown in Europe when I knocked on their door. With 1 business partner and later an assistant: 30 containers of panels a month through Rotterdam, and project supply on top of distribution, 30 truckloads to a single solar site in Romania. More volume than competitors with 10x the headcount, and when factories ran short the network still found us capacity.

    What I ran myselfSupplier negotiation · pricing · container volumes · stock and capacity planning · project deliveries across Europe · transport and customs · invoicing · roadshows · key accounts · hiring

    Why it belongs hereA small team of the right people outruns a big one. I proved that with 1 business partner, which is why I know what a single good hire is worth.

    Robotics · Licence venture · EU

    A category built from nothing

    I saw a robotic lawnmower and turned it into a business. Licence deal with the brand owner, distribution built from scratch across several EU markets, around 150,000 robots supplied. I knew nothing about consumer robotics when I started.

    What I ran myselfLicence negotiation · product selection · building the category · B2B and B2C channels · distribution across several EU markets · after-sales · 150,000 users

    Why it belongs hereEverything here was built by people I had to find first: the brand owner, the factories, the distributors, the service network. Finding them is the part I am good at, and it is why I do it for others again.

    Dutch government · Temporary housing · NL

    A building shipped in and craned into place

    I spotted the tender, won it, and ran it end to end with 2 key partners. The whole structure was produced in China to EU regulation, shipped by bulk carrier, then moved inland: a logistics operation of more than 130 truckloads, lifted into position on site, with the audit trail a government project of that kind demands.

    What I ran myselfSpotting the tender · the bid and the award · production in China to EU regulation · inspection and QC · chartering the bulk carrier · 130+ truckloads inland · lifting and installation on site · the full audit trail

    Why it belongs hereProcurement, QC, expediting, logistics and installation in one chain. That is the daily work of the roles I fill, so when a site engineer or a project buyer tells me what went wrong on their last job, I have stood in the same place.

    Interim talent

    Some companies need the person, not the shortlist.

    Then a recruiter on a fee is not the answer. Then you hire me: a few months inside the business, building the hiring function and handing it over working.

    I have entered 4 markets from zero myself, with my own money, and built the team each time.

    Interim · Talent
    What it is forStanding up or rebuilding a hiring function. A market entry, a scale-up with no talent team, a group of roles in one push.
    Typical shapeFrom 1 to 4 days a week, 3 months or longer.
    What you getA hiring plan, direct sourcing, offer management, and a team that keeps running it after I leave.
    How it is pricedDay rate, monthly. No fee per hire.
    Ask whether the seat is open

    06 / Coverage

    This is my ground.

    I recruit on 3 sides of the same table: the buy side, the project side, and the commercial side facing them. Technical business development, market entry and country management belong there too.

    Sectors I have recruited in

      Sectors I have operated in

        These are the sectors I am up to speed in fastest. A procurement role outside them is not ruled out: the work is the same, only the product is different.

        Markets

        Grew up around Eindhoven, in the middle of that technical industry. Then out into the world: 10 years in China, 7 in Portugal, early days in the UK and Spain.

        The work is international. 3 of those countries are where I know the people well enough to recruit from. If a role will not fill in the Netherlands, I look in the other 2.

        1. Netherlands Home market Dutch, and I lived there until I was 28. Brabant and the Brainport region hold the densest concentration of technical industry in the country, and so of exactly these roles. Clients and candidates across the Benelux, and I am there regularly.
        2. China and Asia 10 years on the ground Beijing and Shenzhen, and from there Singapore and Hong Kong. Sourcing, supplier quality and the factory side of engineering, plus the China to Europe work most firms will not touch.
        3. Portugal Where I live, and a source of engineers who want to move north 7 years here. Strong technical universities, engineers who have worked on international projects, English on the job, EU rules and your own time zone. And plenty of them want to build a life somewhere else: moving north is a step up for them, not a compromise.

        The network

        Outside those 3 countries the communities still reach almost anywhere. And it runs floor to board: a category manager and a CPO in the same week.

        Away from work: 4 happy kids and a lovely wife. Adventure, the outdoors, football.

        07 / Questions

        What you want to know before we start.

        How fast do I get candidates?
        You get a date on the first call, and you hear from me the moment it moves. Only on the parts that depend on me, because naming a number before I have heard the role is guessing. And the search does not stop at 5pm: if a candidate can only talk in the evening or at the weekend, that is when I talk to them.
        What does it cost, and what if it goes wrong?
        If the person leaves I replace them at no further fee: 2 weeks on interim, 3 months on recruitment, 6 months on search. The fee itself depends on the role, you hear it from me before anything goes on paper, and it does not change after.
        My search has to stay quiet. Is that possible?
        On a search that is the rule rather than the exception. I approach without naming you until you say I may, and you get to see exactly who I have spoken to. Nobody hears from me that you are looking.
        And if the role cannot be filled as it stands?
        You hear that in week 1, not after 3 months of searching. Usually it sits in a requirement almost nobody in the market combines, or in a salary that is under the market. You get to see what the market actually does, and you decide what to change.
        Do you employ the interim yourself?
        No, and that is a choice. They contract and invoice you directly, so you see what they really charge and nothing sits in between taking a share of each day worked. It also means I earn nothing from an assignment running longer.
        Who does the work?
        I do. The person from the first call is also the person calling and putting forward your candidates. There is no team behind me for the work to drift to, and I take on no more than I can call through myself. When I am full I say so.

        For candidates

        Read by someone who has done the job.

        A lot of applications get filtered before a person reads them. Yours will not be. I have had to hire these roles for my own companies, with my own money, so I can see what you actually did rather than which words you used.

        • You get an answer, even when there is nothing for you at the time. And once you are in a process you hear where you stand, including when it is a no.
        • Nothing leaves my desk without talking to you first. Not your CV, not your name.
        • I keep a record of who you are and what you are after, so I can call you when the role comes past.

        Introduce yourself

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