The Terrace is the agency for strategy and communication on sustainability
At The Terrace we inspire and activate our clients to make better, more meaningful choices and guide them to make it happen. Are you curious about the people that make our positive change happen? Are you interested in how The Terrace was founded? Or are you perhaps looking for a vacancy? Then you’ve arrived at the right page!
OUR TEAM
Leontine Gast
Leontine founded The Terrace in 2007 with the vision to help companies make positive impact. She has a proven track record working with more than 145 customers in the field of sustainability and helped brands and companies become more future proof. Her experience covers many different sectors, like food, fashion to finance. Leontine is an inspiring professional with a big heart for purpose and making the world a little more beautiful.
Pierre Hupperts
As a sociologist with a strong economic background, Pierre has more than 30 years of experience in CSR and sustainable supply chain management. He is the former director of The Body Shop Benelux and campaign leader at Oxfam Novib, Latin America. A talented visionary with a good understanding of the macro-economic context, mining and international supply chains. Pierre brings convincing skills to bring together people and organisations from different sectors.
Marjolein Baghuis
Marjolein helps companies and other organizations progress from reporting on positive change to reporting for positive change. Always keeping the process as simple as possible and the content focused on the strategy and a better future. She also helps companies to profitably integrate sustainability into their strategy and to communicate about their sustainability strategy internally and externally.
Gerno Kwaks
Gerno Kwaks
Ralph Kruijssen
Ralph has more than 20 years of experience in bringing sustainability to life through communication. With his experience as an award-winning art director at international advertising agencies, Ralph helps good brands become big and big brands become good. He believes good communication is all about branding and activation: distinctive branding ensures you are recognizable and stand out from the crowd. Through activation, brands not only express what they stand for, but challenge their audience to participate and become part of a movement.
Eva Schouten
Eva has built up a strong knowledge of effective sustainability strategies and has previously worked for retailers, producers, NGOs and multi-stakeholder initiatives in multiple sectors. She worked in the cocoa and cotton sector on sustainability and transparency. Her focus is on developing unique and promising propositions for companies to engage with sustainability. In addition, she is always motivated to simplify the complex and convert a clients’ sustainability strategy into an approach that connects stakeholders.
Luca Goossens
After completing her master's degree in communication and journalism, Luca worked as a journalist for a number of years. She also created content for brands such as KPN. Thanks to her experience in the media, she knows exactly how to tell an engaging story. She decided to dedicate her experience as a researcher and storyteller to create positive change in brands and companies. She is motivated to (re)think corporate sustainability strategies and translate these into activating communication approaches.
Rutger Tiesma
Rutger has both a degree in environmental sciences and business administration. He felt like a fish in the water when he wrote his master thesis about sustainability reporting by the 25 largest companies in the Netherlands. In addition, Rutger worked as a strategic marketer at an art institution and saw that companies must constantly look for their position within the larger whole and should anticipate on that constructively.
Zita
Zita is doubtlessly one of our most popular team members. Her presence results in our clients often suggesting: "Let's meet at your office instead of ours.".
OUR STORY
The future needs all of our brains, hearts and hands
What characterizes The Terrace is our desire to make the world future proof; our intrinsic motivation to always be experts on the topic; our analytical ability to make the complex simple; and our creativity to develop innovative solutions.
To date, we have worked for over 115 clients. Ranging from multinationals to scale-ups and non-profit organisations. Sometimes our assignments last two months; some clients stay with us for years. And lots of clients come back for more!
More than just an advisor, our clients describe us as a true sparring partner in their CSR journey. We co-create, we support what is already there and we build trust in relationships. You can count on us to challenge the status quo to create a better business!
The Terrace was born out of impatience
Leontine Gast became the first CSR manager at the food retailer Albert Heijn. With the launch of the organic label AH Biologisch she proved to be a true pioneer in making sustainable products more mainstream.
After a nine-year journey at Albert Heijn, it was clear that making sustainable impact was a lengthy process. Leontine became impatient. She wanted to make more positive change – and faster, too. That’s why, in 2007, she created The Terrace with the ambition to help companies with their CSR challenges.
We became who we are with the help of a Thai restaurant
Pierre Hupperts joined The Terrace in 2011 as partner. He and Leontine met each other way before in the 1990s at the Social Venture Network. Since their first encounter they shared a Thai dinner at least once a year at Birdies on the Zeedijk. Their differences in personality and background combined with their joint ambition to drive businesses to be a force for good proved to be a great combination that led to fruitful results.
With the arrival of Pierre, our team and range of services expanded. Next to brand positioning and communication, we started offering more sustainability & strategy consultancy and stakeholder dialogues. A green heart connecting everything.
OUR CLIENTS
JOIN OUR TEAM
Our dynamic team is made up by a group of diverse people with different backgrounds and a shared ambition to make positive impact. Interested in joining our team? We have no current vacancies, but you can always send an open application to info@theterrace.nl.