My Story

I have never been someone who waits for perfect conditions. I move, I build, and I learn as I go. That is how I have lived my life and how I have built my career. I was not born into struggle, but I learned early that nothing worth having is handed to you.

Where It Started

I grew up in the Netherlands, in a place where people liked to show success. Nice houses, good schools, expensive cars, quiet competition. My parents did well for themselves, but they taught me not to act like it. My mother believed that if you wanted something, you worked for it.

I remember the first time I wanted something that felt like luxury. It was the time when Axe deodorant came out. Every boy in school wanted it. My mother looked at the price, smiled, and said, “If you want the expensive stuff, earn it.” That small moment set the tone for my life. From then on, if I wanted something, I earned it.

So I worked. I filled supermarket shelves. I helped at the butcher early in the mornings before school. I waited tables in the evenings and worked in a nightclub on weekends. At fifteen, I was already used to long hours and tired feet. It gave me independence and something more important than money. It gave me a sense of pride.

Learning Through Service

After school, I did not go to university. I never liked studying. I love learning, but theory never stuck with me. I needed to do something real, something that moved. So I went into hospitality.

My first real job was at the Hilton in Amsterdam. A five-star hotel is a small city. It has its own rhythm. Everyone has a role, and every detail matters. You see the beauty and the chaos at the same time. You learn that leadership starts with service. You cannot fake caring for people.

I started as a junior waiter and worked my way up to running the lounge and banquets. I once helped organize a banquet for more than five thousand people. Everything had to run perfectly. Timing, coordination, attitude. That is where I learned how systems work. Every small action affects the whole.

Hospitality also taught me endurance. I once worked twenty-seven hours straight. I did not care. I was young, hungry, and proud of what I was building. It taught me to show up no matter how I felt. To stay calm when things go wrong. Those are lessons I still use every day.

Building Something of My Own

I moved to Amsterdam on my own when my parents divorced. I worked in bars, built restaurants, and became a mixologist. For a short time, I was among the top ten in the Netherlands. It sounds glamorous, but it was just hard work and creativity. I learned that I loved building experiences from the ground up. I loved seeing something come alive because a team worked together.

That is also when I learned what I am truly good at. I am not a perfectionist behind a bar. I am a builder of teams. I see patterns. I see what connects people and what breaks them apart. Hospitality made me who I am because it taught me how to lead through people, not above them.

When I met my wife, I had already co-built two restaurant concepts. We decided to move to Budapest. I wanted a new challenge. I did not speak Hungarian, had no network, and no plan. I just went. It was not strategic. It was instinct. That is how I have always done things.

From Hospitality to Recruitment

In Budapest, I tried to continue in hospitality, but it was almost impossible without the language. Then I stumbled into recruitment. I joined Randstad, a Dutch company that needed Dutch-speaking recruiters in Hungary. My salary was terrible, but I saw opportunity.

I did not want to rely on being the guy who spoke Dutch. That was not a skill. I wanted to learn business. I switched to English-speaking roles and started to build a team. Within a few years, I was managing global accounts for Merck, leading recruitment across. Around sixty people indirectly reported to me.

Recruitment taught me how organizations really work. It is not just about filling jobs. It is about people, systems, and trust. You see how one bad hire can break a team and how one great person can change everything. I started to understand that good business is just organized humanity.

That mindset shaped how I lead today. I build systems around people, not people around systems.

Building Inside the Machine

After Randstad, I joined KPMG in Budapest. They asked me to build their recruitment function from scratch. When I arrived, the attrition rate was high. There was work to do.

So I built it. Recruitment first. Then global mobility so people could transfer internationally. Then learning and development because if you cannot hire senior people, you train them. Within a year, those three departments existed and worked.

It was one of the toughest challenges of my life. I had to convince global partners, manage change, and fight bureaucracy. But it worked. It also showed me something else. Big corporates move slow. One night during the pandemic, I was still working at eleven in the evening, completely drained. That moment changed me. I realized I was building systems for someone else’s dream. I decided I would build my own.

Starting from Zero Again

Leaving KPMG was not easy. I had a good job, a good salary, and security. But security can kill ambition. After a short stint in a partnership, I started my own company in recruitment, focused on sustainability and renewables. It was risky. I had a non-compete clause, so I could not touch my old clients. We lived off savings. My wife believed in me when many would have panicked.

The first year was survival. The second year was growth. I signed clients from FMCG, Energy, and blue-chip companies. I built a small but strong team. I believed that loyalty comes from fairness, not fear. My rule was simple. The best business development is delivery.

I learned that money follows meaning. If you build something that matters, profit will come.

Finding Purpose in Building Again

After a few years, I started feeling restless. The company worked well, but I wanted to build something bigger. Recruitment is a people business, but it is also transactional. I wanted to create something that multiplied value. This is something that built entire systems, not just teams.

That is when I met Karoly. We first crossed paths when I helped one of his portfolio companies hire a Chief Revenue Officer. The match worked, and the founder was happy. Later, over coffee, we started talking about how startups and corporates both have the same problem from opposite sides. Startups have energy but no structure. Corporations have a structure, but are relatively slow.

I had an idea for a concept called The Hive. A shared services platform to support startups with HR, finance, and branding. The original team behind it fell apart, but the idea stuck. When I explained it to Karoly, he said, “That is a venture studio.” I did not even know the term then. I just knew it made sense.

That conversation became the seed for UniPrisma.

Building UniPrisma

UniPrisma started as an experiment. We wanted to co-build startups instead of just investing in them. But it will grow into a full ecosystem: with a venture studio, a venture capital firm, and the University Venture Capital Association. We built it with our own money, from zero. We turned down early investors because we wanted to make the foundation the right way.

For me, UniPrisma is a place where all my worlds come together. The service mindset from hospitality. The people systems from recruitment. The structure from corporate life. It is all connected.

I am not a typical venture capitalist. I do not believe in hyper-growth. I believe in responsible growth. Growth that lasts. Growth that creates value for people, not just for shareholders. You cannot build something big without thinking about the people who carry it.

What I Stand For

I am a builder. That is the simplest way to describe me. I build teams, companies, and systems that last because they are human. I believe leadership is service. You lead by inspiring, directing and supporting, not by commanding. You build by doing, not by talking.

I have failed often. I have built teams that did not work. I have trusted people I should not have. I have said yes to projects that drained me. But every mistake became a lesson. Every failure became a new framework. That is how I grow.

I do not believe in luck. I believe in momentum. Momentum comes from action. You cannot plan your way into success. You move, you learn, you adapt, and you build again.

That is who I am. A builder who believes in people, in systems that serve, and in learning by doing.

Thijmen Meijer