Portrait: Emmanuel Dierkens

Interview with Emmanuel Dierkens, Project Manager.

An unusual start

After starting the interview with Emmanuel, we were both surprised when realising that he had only been with Aucxis for a little over a year. It felt like he had a lot more years on the clock within the company! 

Although Emmanuel’s contract specifies 31 January 2022 as his start date, we won’t see him actually appear at   the company until a week later. Covid had thrown a spanner in the works and his first meetings with his colleagues were virtual, via Teams. The date of signing the contract, Christmas Eve, is also a bit unusual. We ask Emmanuel why he had made the decision to join Aucxis quite instantaneously. “I no longer felt comfortable in my previous job. Both the position as a project manager and the business environment at Aucxis strongly appealed to me. And as I think life is too short to work reluctantly, I cut the knot and was able to start the new year with great prospects. I haven’t regretted it for a moment, quite the contrary.”

The middle cog

Emmanuel accumulated a variety of skills and extensive know-how throughout his career: programming, performing Windows client support, managing applications at server level, working out manuals, giving training and finally performing project management. It is in this latter role that, at Aucxis, he can make full use of his years of experience, and we ask him what he finds to be the most important challenge.

“Keeping everyone satisfied, both customers and colleagues. The project manager is the middle cog in the process towards a successful project outcome. The first step implies careful listening and analysis of the customer’s objectives: what does he wants to achieve? Next, this information must be clearly communicated to the team of hardware and software architects enabling them to work out an appropriate concept. After that, the technical development and implementation follow. The involvement of both client and team are very important and clear communication is crucial for the smooth development of a project. As a project manager, you are a jack-of-all-trades, but I consider it to be a positive feature: the combination of the technical aspects and a good dose of people skills make me really enjoy the job.”

Freedom, variety and “la douce France”

Emmanuel greatly appreciates the freedom and trust given to him in the exercise of his job. Also, diversity makes the job attractive. “We build RFID solutions for companies in different sectors. The challenge of applying RFID to optimise various business processes stimulates creativity and makes the job interesting. The passion to not quit until it works, the drive, is an extraordinary value within Aucxis. What I also very much enjoy is the opportunity to speak French at regular times. During my childhood, we as a family spent a six weeks’ holiday in France every summer. My brother and I acted as interpreters between the French and Dutch children at the campsite where we stayed. Great memories and a passion for the country and the French language flowed from this.”