Renze finds peace and career opportunities in Twente

A bit of background: Renze was born in Monster but raised in Twente. His mother is from Friesland, and his father’s family lives throughout the country. At the age of eight, Renze and his parents left Zuid-Holland and moved to Twente. The family settled down in Hengelo. After growing up here, Renze temporarily disappeared from Twente during his studies, since he studied in Nijmegen. Renze then quickly returned to Hengelo to live with his then-girlfriend, Maartje. Maartje and Renze eventually got married, and the family had two children, currently 1 and 3 years old. They moved to the neighbouring peaceful village of Borne. “Borne is a wonderful village, and if I do have to go to customers in the Randstad, I can be on the A1 in no time”. Besides his busy work and private life, Renze has time for one hobby; playing football at HVV Tubantia.

In the early years of his career, Renze worked in the Randstad for various large insurance companies. He did this while living in Hengelo. Of course, this involved a lot of travelling.

“I have travelled back and forth for eight years. Looking back now, I must’ve been completely crazy!”

Renze no longer wanted this. The long daily commute and having two young children made him decide to look for a new challenge in Twente. In September 2018, this brought him to IT consultancy company Victa in Hengelo. Renze is very glad he has taken this step: “From time to time I still have to drive to customers, but it is already so much better. The balance between work and private life has improved enormously”. Thanks to this decision, he has been able to find more peace and flexibility in both his work and private life.

When Renze started at Victa, he wanted to delve deeper into IT. He wanted to gain actual knowledge of this sector, meaning also learning the “hard skills”. He had a great affinity with data-driven work. After having done several assignments as a Business Intelligence consultant, Renze soon returned to his previous role as a project manager. As a project manager at Victa, Renze works with many big companies in Twente. He supervises the entire process behind a project; from managing the various consultants with their skills and expertise to checking the budget, results and deadlines. He also advises clients in the field of Business Intelligence. Victa relieves customers in the field of information provision and management dashboarding. This is done with intuitive Business Intelligence (BI) software QlikView, Qlik Sense and Power BI.

Renze feels at home in Twente and finds the same career opportunities here that he had when he was still working in the Randstad. “Therefore, I am an example of someone who always thought the Randstad offered better and more career opportunities than Twente, which is why I initially chose to work in the Randstad. We did also consider moving there, but finally decided not to do so because we feel at home here.” So, Renze and Maartje did not want to give up Twente. Renze’s friends all live in Twente. Maartje is a real family person and wants to stay close to her parents and the rest of her family. Besides, she has a very nice job at the ROC in Almelo, which she did not want to give up.

It turned out to not be necessary at all to leave hearth and home and go to the Randstad to make a career, Renze discovered. That is also possible here. “I have now seen both worlds, and it does not differ too much. There are substantial companies in Enschede and Almelo, for example, with great career opportunities.

“So don’t get yourself stuck on the idea of ‘if I want to make a career I need to go to the Randstad’, nonsense! That’s not right.”

Because of the work that Renze does, he has a lot to do with all these great companies. Renze wants to share this eye-opener with the rest of the world. “For talents from Twente, there are more than enough options within Twente!”