Zeno Koninckx

Growth partner for technical SMEs: installers, contractors and manufacturers.

More leads.
Faster hiring.
Less manual work.

I find out where a technical SME loses growth: in sales, in recruitment, or in the work in between. Then I fix it. With software when it pays, with an existing tool when that does the job.

Growth for technical SMEs zeno@mpat.io

Get in touch

// bottlenecks

Where technical SMEs lose growth

More leads

New projects come in through word of mouth and a handful of long-standing relationships. That works, until it stops. A system that finds the right companies by itself makes you less dependent on luck.

Example: prospecting system

Faster hiring

Vacancies for technicians stay open for a long time. The people you want are employed and not actively looking. You have to reach them where they are, with a message that rings true for their job.

Example: recruitment marketing in-house

Less manual work

Quotes, planning, onboarding, reporting: much of it lives in Excel, in email and in one colleague's head. That costs hours every week, and it stops the moment that colleague goes on leave.

Example: HR automation at Hasco Invest

// work

Selected work

The same approach every time: look first, then decide what to build, buy or leave alone. Company names only where allowed.

Prospecting system for a refrigeration contractor

Situation: A refrigeration contractor wanted more qualified leads.
What I did: Built a custom prospecting system and put it to work. Sales receives qualified prospects and handles the follow-up.
Result: In 4 months: 10 qualified leads, roughly €3M in estimated combined project value.

Recruitment marketing in-house

Situation: A technical company paid an external platform for recruitment marketing. Data, ads and costs sat with the vendor.
What I did: Built an in-house setup: targeted Meta ads, a short questionnaire per role, and candidates delivered straight into the existing applicant tracking system, the ATS.
Result: The company now controls its own data, ads and budget.

HR automation at Hasco Invest

Situation: Hasco Invest is a group of about 1,300 FTE, including Climagroup and Green & Durable Group. I worked there via mpat.io from January 2023 to May 2026.
What I did: Led the group-wide ATS replacement, introduced new recruitment channels and built onboarding automations in Power Apps. Also recruited HVAC-R technicians and generated leads for Climagroup.
Result: One recruitment system for the whole group, extra inflow channels and less manual work in onboarding.

Practical AI in a technical SME

Situation: A technical SME wondered whether part of its quote calculation could be automated with AI.
What I did: Workshops with the people who make the quotes. Mapped the process step by step and weighed each step: what does automating gain, what does it cost, and what breaks if it goes wrong.
Result: The value was in the analysis. The company now knows which part is worth automating and which part is better left manual for now. Putting 'agents' on everything is expensive. The work is finding the one process where it pays off.

Ongoing

Price bands for supplier quotes

Situation: An installation company wanted to check new supplier quotes against what it paid before. That history was spread across PDFs.
What I am doing: Collecting past quotes, using AI to pull out the text and prices, and putting them in one structure. For each component, such as a CO2 refrigeration unit or the electrical panel that comes with it, a price band based on earlier quotes.
Goal: See at a glance whether a new quote falls within the band or above it.

Price band from earlier quotes

within the band

your project

Happy to take a look. We analyse it together first, then decide what gets built.

Get in touch

// approach

How I work

I start with the people who do the work. Before I write a vacancy, I talk to the technicians. Before I automate a process, I sit next to whoever does it today.
I build only when the numbers justify it. Sometimes an existing tool is the better answer. Then you buy that, and I build nothing.
I tell you when something is not worth doing. One honest conversation up front beats three months of building something nobody uses.
I work across sales, recruitment and software. That means fewer handovers, and so fewer misunderstandings and less waiting.

I started in chemistry, on the production side. Then sales, recruitment, employer branding and software development. I understand the technician, the HR manager and the database.

The name: 'mpat' comes from empathy, '.io' from my soft spot for technology.

Today I work as a growth partner via mpat.io, alongside my ongoing assignment at Airclima, where I have worked on AI tooling and sales since June 2026.

// contact

Contact

Have a project or a problem that needs solving? Tell me about it.