Russell Kerkhoven

Russell Kerkhoven joined IRC on 1st of May 2008 as Head Information and Communication.

Russell has a BA Social Anthropology (Honours), State University Utrecht (1984), The Netherlands, major subjects: Adult Education and Rural Development, Economic Anthropology and from the same university a 1988 MA Sociology (Planning and Policy Formulation), major subjects: Development Planning; Extension Science. In 2002 he completed a second Masters in Change Management (MCM) at Sioo, the Interuniversity Centre for Organisational and Change Management studies.

In the last year Russell ran Blue Leaf - an advisory and facilitation practice. As social entrepreneur he focused on learning from international experience and quality of participation. This included use of interactive methods, development of internal and inter-organisational learning. From 2004 to 2007 he transformed the Knowledge Centre to a Knowledge and Learning Centre  with PSO Capacity building in developing countries, an umbrella association of 50 Dutch civil society organisations. Before that he worked as senior consultant on HIV/AIDS and organisational development for ETC Crystal, part of ETC International (Leusden, Netherlands). During the nineties he lived and worked in Africa, initially for UNDP and WHO, as deputy director he was one of the key actors in the start up and expansion of the Southern Africa AIDS Information Dissemination Service (SAfAIDS) a regional information and knowledge organisation on the development dimensions of HIV/AIDS.