Markus Karoly. Automation consultant. Founder of TNIA.

My fascination with automation actually began in the nursery — or rather, in my father's office. He was a self-employed design engineer, and as a child I would sit next to him at the screen, watching sketches turn into machines. That probably set the path already: I wanted to understand how the things that build other things are built.

I began my first apprenticeship in 2008 at OKU Automation in Winterbach — a special-purpose machine builder, a traditional workshop, traditional learning. Unfortunately the company ran into trouble during the 2008/09 economic crisis; OKU ended my apprenticeship early. A hard lesson at 17 — but in hindsight one of the best disruptions that could have happened to me.

I started my training as an industrial mechanic over again — this time at FESTO in Esslingen. A bigger company, a different culture, the same smell of the workshop. Here I learned not only the trade itself, but also how professional industrial production works structurally.

After the apprenticeship I wanted more — so I went back to school at the Technical College in Stuttgart to take my university entrance qualification. I then started a degree in industrial engineering. I dropped it after a short while, though, because I realised: I don't belong in the lecture hall. I belong on the shop floor, on the phone, at the table with customers and design engineers.

I made the decisive leap as a career changer at abag Anlagentechnik — in sales for industrial cleaning systems. After that, two years of self-employed sales for robotics solutions. This is where I saw what customers were missing from conventional automation consulting: someone who doesn't just sell a solution, but can plan independently — and has the network to then get the solution delivered. I went self-employed.

After two years on my own and many valuable contacts I founded TNIA — as a company with an ambition that reaches beyond me as an individual. Today I work with a Trusted Network of specialised partners with whom I maintain genuine friendships and a shared project history. I know robotics, assembly and inspection systems, conveyor technology, feeding, controls — I'm not an absolute expert everywhere, but deep enough in to ask the right questions and bring the right people together.