Manu Vollens

numo

30-day microSaaS sprint

ImpactGenie

Co-Founder

Kill the Dinosaur

Helping mission-driven founders in launching & growing new business opportunities.

Founder

Airborn

We’re on a mission to support and fund impact driven startup founders.
Rome wasn’t built in a day… expected to launch soon

Co-Founder & Venture Partner

ClimateCamp - hiring!

Decarbonising the food industry and its supply chains by making it easier for companies & their suppliers to exchange carbon data.

Member of The Board of Advisors

Dripl

Venture Coach

Aquafin

New Business Developer - Riothermie

switchrs

Switchrs is a multidisciplinary innovation collective that focuses on social-circular economy.

At switchrs we believe in sustainability as a positive story. That's why our focus is on designing positive impact. We make, show, facilitate and talk about things that regenerate our planet, society and economy.

bundl

Long term collaboration as a Strategy Designer for the Bundl team and its network of clients.

(*) via Kill the Dinosaur

Sr. Corporate Venture Builder (*)

Thea Swing

Thea swing is a design product that gives children with a disability the chance to experience swinging in a safe way, mountable on any classic swing! To swing in a free, safe and comfortable way; that's what the Thea swing stands for.

www.theaswing.com

Co-founder

Launching Impactful Micro-Businesses 🌱🌎 I Venture Building👷 I Circular Economy ♻️ I AI for Good 🤖 I Angel Investing 💸

I’m not a productivity guru.
I’ve launched 10+ ventures, started 100+ side projects, and abandoned at least as many.

Like many creative generalists, I live between sticky notes, Notion docs, WhatsApp reminders, and new startup ideas that always feel more exciting than the last.

So I’m doing what I do best: building for the mess I live in.

For the next 30 days, I’m building a micro-SaaS focused on one core challenge:
Helping creative generalists (like me) stay focused without feeling boxed in.

I’ll be building and sharing in public.

Follow me for transparent updates, lessons learned, and real progress from someone who’s deep in the chaos (and finally doing something about it).

Mappalink

At Mappalink, we are redefining autonomous robot navigation with trustworthy and explainable AI. We are developing the Mappalink Mediator, a software module for fleetmanagers and coordination systems to enhance autonomous mobile robot (AMR) fleet autonomy and safety. 

Our mission is to revolutionize autonomous robotics by providing scalable, modular solutions that integrate seamlessly, driving efficiency, safety and productivity in diverse warehouse environments. We envision a future where autonomous robotics redefine industry standards, fostering safer and more efficient operations.

Our current market focus is AMRs and AGVs in logistics, e-commerce and warehousing for any industry.

Too Good To Go

Key Achievements:
- Expanded the team from 25 to 60 dedicated team members working in a thriving company culture.
- Growth of our partner businesses 3x from 4,000 to over 12,000, including acquiring well known brands like Lunch Garden, Unilever, Barry Callebaut, Match&Smatch, BioPlanet, N&D, Ikea, ...
- Increase in impact (meals saved) from 3 million to an astounding +12 million, reducing food waste and driving our mission (+50% growth avg. YoY, including pandemic year).
- Launched successful impact campaigns generating +50m press views and PR value to contribute to our missions' awareness.
- Significantly increased our brand awareness and user base to 2.5M registered users or 20% of BE population, driving both business growth and social impact.

Key Responsibilities:
- Coached the local management team (5 direct reports) to lead the organization toward its growth objectives and sustainability mission.
- Nurtured a fantastic culture of a team of 60 team members together with the department heads, to foster a culture of innovation, fun and commitment.
- Cultivated relationships with key partners and secured high-profile accounts, expanding the partner network.
- Demonstrated a strong commitment to reducing food waste and promoting sustainability, with a track record of saving millions of meals.
- Managed country budgets and ensured healthy country P&L to support business growth and sustainability
- Reporting to Global Management (COO and VP operations)

Country Director Belgium

Key responsibilities:
- Coaching of 8 Key Account managers on a weekly basis
- Hiring 3 new Key Account Managers to scale the team
- Development of a new business model and unit (manufacturing) in the team
- Defining and driving the BE Key Account Strategy together with the team
- Managing P&L of the department
- Leading key negotiations with C-level of big key accounts 
- Acquiring key partners to our platform like Lunch Garden, Unilever, Barry Callebaut, Jumbo, ...

Head of Key Accounts Ad Interim

As the Head of Customer Success at Too Good To Go, I had the privilege of leading and growing a dynamic team from 1 to 10 members, both in customer success and account management. 

Key responsibilities:
- Part of the country leadership team leading the Account Management, Retention, Customer Success and Care strategy
- Manage the P&L of the department
- Led and nurtured a team of 10 professionals, fostering a collaborative and high-performance culture. Oversaw hiring, training, and development initiatives to build a cohesive and motivated team.
- Spearheaded initiatives to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Developed and implemented strategies for onboarding, training, and ongoing support to meet and exceed customer expectations. Average customer satisfaction rate (>90%).
- Managed strategic accounts, ensuring their continued success and growth and low churn. Collaborated closely with key stakeholders to identify opportunities for value creation and sustainability.
- Established and tracked key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure customer success, team performance, and overall business impact. Continuously analyzed data to refine strategies and drive improvements.

Head of Customer Success

As our Country Director was growing internally in the company, helping launch Austria and Poland, I took local responsibility to manage the Belgium team Ad Interim in his absence.

Country Director Belgium Ad Interim

Parallel to Business Development, I was employee number one in Belgium managing and coordinating all account management and customer service activities to maintain excellent customer satisfaction rates and partner retention.

Core responsibilities:
- Account management
- Customer service
- stakeholder management
- Cross-functional team collaboration with sales team

Customer Success and Account Manager

Joining Too Good To Go in month one after launching in Belgium, I was responsible for all partner sales, account management and customer care in the region of Antwerp and Limburg with leading the launch of key cities like Antwerp and Hasselt.

Key achievements:
- Leading and coordinating city launch of Antwerp and Hasselt with 360° approach involving local PR, Social Media, community groups, key partners and policy makers like city responsibles.
- Overachieving sales targets
- High retention rate and satisfaction rates (>90%) of launching partners

Business Development Manager / City launcher

‘t Strandhof

't Strandhof is the mother company of the hospitality concept started by the "Vrienden van de Reynaert". Founded in 2014, 't Strandhof grew into thé pioneer of pop-up summerpubs in the Province of Antwerp with 5 editions in Mol and one edition in Antwerp. 

Peak summer of 2018, we hosted +20,000 happy customers over a 2-month period. Over the years, this grew into a platform where young entrepreneurs could experiment in a risk-free environment and got coached by other young entrepreneurs. 

Core responsibilities:
- Managing and coaching a team of students, part-timers and full-time employees (+10)
- P&L ownership together with Head of Finance
- Building up the bar and terrain, and making sure the logistics and processes were in place to ensure smooth operations
- (Automation of) Inventory and stock management

Contact: www.strandhof.be

Co-founder & Head of Operations

La Ruche qui dit Oui !

Co-founded and scaled the local farmers' market of Boeren&Buren Mol, bringing together +20 local farmers and +100 customers on a weekly basis to champion short-chain sales directly between farmers and consumers. 

Main responsibilities:
- Acquiring new partners and farmers
- Logistics and delivery
- Financials and accountancy

Co-Founder & Head of Operations

CIFAL Flanders

CIFAL Flanders is part of UNITAR’s (United Nations Institute for Training & Research) network of International Training Centres, dedicated to provide innovative training to strengthen the capacities of  leaders to advance sustainable development.

The mission of CIFAL Flanders is to develop capacities of individuals, organizations and institutions to enhance global decision-making and to support country-level action for shaping a better future.

As Product manager I was responsible for:
- Designing visuals and content of UN frameworks on sustainability
- Developing and hosting workshops to integrate SDGs in corporate environments with key stakeholders
- Strategy and support in implementing sustainability and CSR frameworks in NGOs, governmental and corporate organizations

Product & Project Manager

RBLS - Rethink innovation

RBLS is a digital innovation agency, building digital services and apps to facilitate corporate collective innovation. 

Key Achievements:
- Development of internal innovation platform for UZ Antwerp
- Development and implementation on internal Social Media platform for Antwerp Management School
- Innovation workshops for Digipolis Antwerp, Caratamundi, ...

Core responsibilities:
- Sales: Ownership commercial strategy and sales funnel
- Head of Product: leading and coordinating team of freelancers and developers to deliver product to clients in time and budget

Co-founder & Head of Product

Pepperminds Belgium

Pepperminds Belgium is the biggest Face-To-Face Marketing player on the Belgian market. As Sales Representative, I've marketed and commercialized different brands and consistently overachieved targets: 

- Representative for Child Focus, WWF, and HELLOFRESH on the Belgian Market and coordinated door to door sales pitches for different ngo's like WWF, Child Focus and Unicef.
- Responsible for recruiting new sales promotors.
- Coordinated and led sales at events like Boekenbeurs, ... for Mediahuis, Humo, Amnesty

Sales Representative

+10 years of experience as a commercial leader in fast-paced scale-up environments as founder (RBLS), Head of Operations (Boeren &Buren, Strandhof) and Country Director (Too Good To Go) with a proven track record of strong growth, even during global macro-economic challenges. 

I've found my sweet spot on the crossroads between tech and social impact to build and scale businesses for good and create meaningful change.

📩: francoprontera@gmail.com
📍: Mol / Remote

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Franco Prontera

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