A conversation with Rik Thijssen, Advisor to the Board at Vitens
In this edition of Words of Wisdom with our Advisory Council Members, Helge Daebel, Partner at Emerald, speaks with Rik Thijssen, Advisor to the Board at Vitens, the largest drinking water company in the Netherlands. Together, they explore how the landscape has shifted, why governance and leadership matter more than ever, and what it will take for utilities to turn good ideas into lasting change.
Climate Change: from distant concern to daily reality
Helge Daebel: Let’s start by zooming in on what’s changed over the last few years. What are the major trends you’re seeing across utilities today?
Rik Thijssen: The main trends we see are, unsurprisingly, driven by climate change. Depending on the country, there’s a growing demand for water, both for domestic and industrial use, and rising concerns about water quality.
Climate change has, of course, already been on the radar for some years, but few understood how immediate and impactful it would become. Today, every utility feels that pressure.
Interconnected Challenges Require a Broader View
Helge: Those challenges are significant in themselves, but are there additional layers that make things even more complex?
Rik: Absolutely. When you look at it from the utility perspective, you quickly realize that these issues don’t stop at the fence line of a water utility. Nature and agriculture are affected in the same way — we’re all dealing with interconnected challenges, and there’s no single solution yet.
So we need to start thinking and acting with a broader, future-oriented perspective.
Governance: when boundaries don’t match reality
Helge: That brings us to governance. Ideally, water management should happen at the catchment level, where natural systems define the boundaries. Is that model working, or do you see challenges there?
Rik: Governance is perhaps the most complicated challenge we face. In Europe — and I’d say in places like the Netherlands and the UK in particular — we’ve long discussed how utilities are organized. Historically, change has been gradual. But now, trends like climate change and surging water demand are moving far faster than our governance models can adapt.
Our current models are not prepared for this pace. They tend to limit solutions to what’s possible within a utility’s own system boundaries, even though nature doesn’t recognize those boundaries. That’s a big mismatch.
Innovation: the bottleneck isn’t ideas — it’s implementation
Helge: From Emerald’s perspective, innovation plays a central role in overcoming these barriers. Is enough happening in the utility sector to push innovation forward?
Rik: Everyone agrees that innovation is essential. And actually, starting innovation is not the hardest part — there’s usually enough capacity, ideas, and financing to initiate new risk full developments or to launch new pilots.
The real bottleneck is implementation. Moving from a successful pilot to a full-scale solution that truly addresses water quality, water demand, or climate adaptation — that’s where utilities often get stuck. We simply don’t have the implementation power yet we need to meet future challenges. Vision and leadership are crucial.
Leadership: the missing ingredient
Helge: Is that reflected in the way utilities allocate their budgets? Are we spending enough on implementation?
Rik: Budgets are often cited as the problem, but I think that’s too easy an excuse. The real deciding factor is leadership — specifically, the CEO’s commitment to innovation.
When a CEO is truly innovation-minded, they’ll find creative ways to secure the right funding at the right moment and push projects through to implementation. Wherever you see a utility succeeding with innovation, you’ll find a CEO who champions it personally.
Helge: That’s a great point. It also means that, as investors and innovation partners, we need to involve strong utility leaders — those who can bring new solutions to life.
Rik: Exactly. True leadership is the catalyst. As long as management remains indispensable in the operations of a drinking water company, strategy and innovation will remain secondary concerns. When CEOs are engaged, innovation becomes part of the organization’s DNA rather than a side project.
Procurement and Collaboration: avoiding “death by piloting”
Helge: One final question — many startups struggle with the procurement process in utilities. They often need multiple reference projects before being taken seriously, which can be exhausting. How can that be improved?
Rik: It’s a real issue. Startups often have to talk to ten different utilities separately to prove their technology works. That’s inefficient and time-consuming.
Utilities themselves need to collaborate more effectively — to coordinate pilots, share test results, and reduce duplication. If ten utilities could join forces and run one shared pilot, startups would scale much faster. It’s about taking collective responsibility for innovation.
Looking Ahead: the three pillars of progress
Helge: To summarize — climate change and water demand are driving transformation in the sector. To meet these challenges, we need:
- Adaptive governance that matches the complexity of the system.
- Leadership from CEOs who champion innovation all the way to implementation.
- Collaboration among utilities to support startups and avoid “death by piloting.”
Rik: Exactly. Those three things together will make all the difference.
More on Water at Emerald:
Emerald Announces €60 Million First Close of Global Water Fund II