Henk Ovink is the first Special Envoy for International Water Affairs for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. He is Sherpa to the UN & World Bank High Level Panel on Water, and Sherpa for the UN 2023 Conference on Water. Henk served on President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force and developed and led ‘Rebuild by Design’, the Task Force’s resilience innovation challenge.

Henk is the former Director General for Spatial Planning and Water Affairs and Director National Spatial Planning for the Netherlands. Henk teaches at Harvard GSD, the London School of Economics and holds a research position at the University of Groningen. Water as Leverage is Henk’s brainchild, born out of his ceaseless drive and firm believe that the world can be changed through water and by design, leaving no one behind.