Humberto Tan is an enterprising owner. In a week with the final of Holland’s Got Talent to be presented by him and the start of the broadcasts of ‘Humberto Ondernemen’ on Tuesday evening, he is on his way to his old employer BNR for an interview about ‘being a self-made man’.
Lots of jobs
In the meantime, he is working as chairman of a committee at the KNVB that must come up with a plan for tackling racism on the football field, plans are ready at RTL for a new event that he would like to organize and assignments are coming in for it. photo shoots that he likes to pick up as a photographer ‘who has passed hobby status’.
On Friday he presents a news show on Radio 1 like every week, there are some agreements to get the day chair at two (probably virtual) congresses and then he invests in some companies and real estate.
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Chance of chance
“I see opportunities in many places,” says Tan. “And why should I leave them behind? I was recently in Rwanda with a photo job for the tourist office. I had to make a series about gorillas and one about the big 5. But I saw three other beautiful subjects. I immediately sold them. “
For the television program on RTL Z, he visited André Rieu, Corendon owner Atilay Uslu, Coolblue boss Pieter Zwart and the founder of Picnic supermarket Joris Beckers.
“They all have their own strength. At Atilay I thought that was his modesty. Joris Beckers is enthusiastic, Pieter Zwart is his gut feeling and the ‘just do it’ attitude.”
Just do it
“And I recognize myself in that. I always said ‘just do it’ to myself, but in Dutch that slogan is actually better. You just have to stick with it.”
Tan studied law but climbed the social ladder as a presenter for the public and then commercial broadcaster.
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Suits and chairs
Now sometimes everything he does seems to be a success, but that’s not true. His clothing line ‘Humberto’ has disappeared. The once best-dressed man in the Netherlands started in 2003 with the men’s fashion brand under his name.
But more than ten years later, at the same time as the success of his career as a Late Night presenter, the tailor got down.
Tan had started a collaboration with the Dutch suit maker Van Gils to put Humberto a little higher in the market. “But that wasn’t a good deal,” says Tan now. “The suits were too expensive. In addition, I no longer had time to get involved. I also did not have a team that could take over everything. So I stopped completely then.”
In those years, Tan had also linked his name to rather old-fashioned armchairs from the Prominent brand. “It was really over 65 where they sold the chairs. They wanted to attract a younger audience and so there was a Humberto series. But my name had no added value.”
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Cowardly entrepreneur
Tan calls it educational experiences but also finds it nothing compared to the experiences of the entrepreneurs he spoke to for the television series. “I’m a very cowardly entrepreneur. Because I have a salary at RTL. And I hardly ever take the financial risk with my plans.”
“That’s how I once came up with Let’s Dance, a dance event, but I wanted to keep it relatively small and organize it in Paradiso. Then RTL said we had to go to the Ziggo Dome. They took the risk of tackling it big. I didn’t think it was that way either. sorry that I earned less with it than if I organized it myself. ”
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No sales required
In recent years, Tan has been much more active as a photographer. And just like so many things in his professional life, this has unexpectedly become a busy activity.
“I always had it as a hobby and it took off when I won The Perfect Picture,” he says about the television program in which amateurs take the best photos possible. “But I had absolutely no plan what to do with what. It just happens.”
He is now sponsored by Canon and receives commissions from magazines, companies and sells photos that he posts on social media. “It helps if you have 375,000 followers. I don’t have to do sales.”
Humberto Ondernemen can be seen on RTL Z from Tuesday 18 August at 20.30 and later on Videoland and RTL 7
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