Nico Terra

Nico Terra has a degree in social and organisational psychology and has spent over 25 years working as an entrepreneur and change agent. He worked in a number of countries, mainly in the education and health sector, before joining IRC in 2009. He gives lectures at universities and at international conferences and has published in international journals. He began work with IRC on the request of the Supervisory Board as an interim director in 2009 to support IRC's strategic repositioning and organisational change process.  

From that point onwards, Nico started to guide IRC as an interim manager through an ambitious process aimed at positioning IRC as a social enterprise that unlocks the potential of local organisations to provide sustainable and appropriate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. Nico and IRC embarked on a journey to define its role with the ambition to change the sector to provide lasting water and sanitation services to the poor.  This completed IRC’s evolution from a WASH library in the Dutch environment ministry in 1968 into a modern, international knowledge-driven NGO and think-tank with a strong agenda for social change.

Impressed by the concepts and approaches he helped to roll out and by the respect IRC earned from partners and clients, Nico opted in 2010 to remain with IRC as director. In this position he is responsable for IRC strategy and operations. The first business plan under his leadership repositioned IRC as an international organisation with strong roots in countries – a catalyst and a partner in change. He was successful at a time of mounting austerity in securing a grant agreement from the Dutch Government for €10 million of programmatic funding for 5 years.

“Social entrepreneur” is not a phrase Nico Terra uses to describe himself. Nico finds his personal inspiration in enabling people to discover and use their full capacities and he places importance on building a team of talented, motivated and inspirational professionals within IRC.  However, Nico and IRC are committed to innovative change, to taking well-calculated risks and to taking responsibility for seeing change through – and these are indeed the qualities of social entrepreneurship.