Biography of Maurice Zondag
It was a hot summer day, june 19th in 1973. Maurice was born in Zeist, The Netherlands, oldest son of Rob Zondag and Wil Zondag-Vermeulen.
At the age of three, his brother Michael joined the family, and because of the job his father got in The Hague, they moved to Leiden.
At early age it became clear that Maurice had a ‘thing’ with cars. He recognized all the brands and models from a distance, and loved playing with his scale model cars.
Music also was Maurices’ thing. At the age of nine, his parents let him choose a musical instrument to learn how to play. His choises narrowed down to piano or violin. Practical as he was, he chose violin, also because his grandmother, the mother of his father, played violin too and he loved hearing her play. After playing for 3 years he also wanted to learn playing the piano, and he got an electrical piano where he could practice on. Playing violin for 7 years, he decided he wanted something else, and bought a beginners guitar. Went to the library to play from sheet music, and learned himself the art of guitarplaying. Since music was also a big part on his school, he developed a good singing voice, that he gladly combined with his guitar play.
At school he also came in touch with theatre, and acting. That too developed as an hobby and he stood for the choice: am I going to be a professional actor or musician, or do a I want a ‘regular’ job. His parents adviced the last option, so he decided to go for that and let the music an theatre be his hobby.
Going to school in The Hague, the city where his father worked, they drove together to the office, from where Maurice took his bike and went to school. After school he returned there, and he and his dad went back home. It is there, where he first got in contact with computers. Still, somewhere late mid 80s, it wasn’t that much of a computer as we know now a days, but he get the hang of it, and loved fiddeling around with it.
Since he stil was crazy about cars, he decided he wanted a profession in the automotive industry, and went to college in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, to study the mechanical part of cars, and at the same time learn about business, marketing and economics. After two years he quit school and started working. In the evening hours he continued studying marketing and got his degree.
Many jobs gone by, mainly focused on sales jobs, a thing he learned when working at a local Volkswagen / Audi dealer during his college time. In 2001 he started his career in consultancy. He previously worked in the telecom industry and moved from there to the ICT world, right at the end of the ninetees, when the internetbuble was at it hights.He said sales goodbye, and found his love in consultancy. First ICT Application Consultant, and lateron changed the focus on Business Consultancy, what he still does today.
He also found his love of his life in 1997, at a play in the local neighbourhood he attended, the musical Jesus Christ Superstar. His eye fell on a girl, 7 years younger then he was, and it was mutual. They got married in september of 2005. They lived for 5 years in Leiderdorp, a village near Leiden, and got the chance in 2006 to buy a house near their families in Leiden, where he now lives with his wife, two cats, two rabbits and a hamster. The horse they own didn’t fit in their garden so he has its own stable nearby. Kids are not in the picture yet, but who knows what the future will bring.
Working in the ICT world he developed an interest in the internet development. Seeing the potential the internet has he started to create websites in the early age, and became an early adapter of new technology. In that matter it is not surprising that he combined his love for theatre, cars, music and computertechnology into podcasting.In february 2008 he founded the company Intralog Sunday Media Network, to take his productions to a higher level, and still working as an business consultant as his dayjob. Working on his company in the evening hous and weekends, he fully uses the international time difference to communicate to the rest of the world. He fully enjoys the posibilities the internet gives to do so, combined with his love for consultancy. Sharing knowledge, experience and information by comunicating with people is one of his strenghts. Therefor he also started to help out organisations on their development of Social media, combined with Social Marketing or New Marketing, where Social Networking is an important tool. With his business and traditional marketing experience combined with the latest development on this areas, he became quite successful in doing so.
One of his other great passions, coming from the love of cars, is motorracing. From Renault Clio Cup to Formula 1, if it goes fast, he’s into it. In 2009 he discovered the magical world of online virtual simracing. A way of practicing motorracing, at very affordable costs. He founded his team, being his first, and own sponsor at first with his Dutch F1 podcast the F1Cast, the team F1Cast Racing was born. It came soon to his notice that the similarities of online racing and real racing are more then just the way the experience of driving itself. Sponsors of real racing teams are looking into ways of creating the buzz around their brand, both offline and online, so the link was made with his online team. In the end of 2009 the company eXtropy started sponsoring his team, as well as being a sponsor of a Suzuki Swift team. For the start of the season in 2010 they are both developing a cross channel between both sides of motorracing, for maximum benefit of both the racing teams and the sponsor itself.
Knowing him, he enjoys life at its most and get his successes, by making it possible to combine his passions together and get fullfilment with his profession at the same time.