Tijmen van der Poll

YEP period 2021 - 2022, batch 23

YEP Role

As a Yepper of Batch 23, I am working in Tunisia for TGS Agrobusiness Solutions, a Wageningen-based company that is active in creating, developing, and supporting agricultural initiatives in developing countries.
I am a business developer and representative for TGS and its partners in Tunisia. I focus on providing post-harvest solutions (including disinfection, sorting, storage, and packaging solutions) to producers and agricultural producers in Tunisia.

Skills

• Active Listening
• Pioneering
• Languages (Spanish, English, Dutch, French, German, and learning Arabic)
• Intercultural interaction and relationship building
• Teamwork

Background

• Nationality: I was born in the Netherlands, but I grew up in Spain. I have the privilege of having been brought up in 3 languages (Spanish, English, and Dutch). Even though I am Dutch in nationality, I feel that a major part of me has been shaped by growing up in Spain.
• Education: I studied International Business and Languages at the Rotterdam Business School. This 4-year program gave me the opportunity to carry out an internship for TGS (the company I now work for) in Tunisia, and to study abroad in Vienna, Austria. Through this study, I was able to discover and further develop my passion for pioneering new business initiatives on an international and cross-cultural level.

Experience before YEP

• Before joining YEP I worked for a Marketing startup (ZichZach BV) in Rotterdam, which allowed me to gain experience in Branding and establishing a strategy for online presence.
• After my time at ZichZach, I worked at the customer service team of Holland Diervoeders, a company in Dordrecht that provides animal feeding and snacks on a local and international level. I was immersed in the world of logistics on a practical level, which has given me awareness and experience in the different processes and factors that the logistics chain entails.