Terry Waters

Executive in Residence/Industry Advisor

Terry Waters is an experienced CEO, Board member, go-to-market strategist, and business builder. He currently serves as an Executive in Residence and Advisor Board Member at Northeastern University, where he provides valuable insights and guidance. Additionally, he is a Member at Nectar, Inc., where he contributes to the organization’s activities. Terry also holds the position of President at Waters Advisory, where he offers leadership advisory and professional development programs for PE-backed CEOs, their Leadership teams, and their Boards, with a focus on various aspects of leadership and business development. Furthermore, he serves as an Advisor at GearBox Capital and as a Board Member at See|Me.

Most recently, Terry was the CEO and Board member for Devada, a business focused on building online professional communities where software developers and technology professionals learn, share insights, and collaborate. He successfully sold Devada’s AnswerHub software business to IgniteTech in November 2022 and then Devada’s DZone media and marketing services business to TechnologyAdvice in May 2023.

Prior to Devada, Terry ran his own go to market advisory firm, Waters Advisory working with PE firms, CEOs, and leadership teams on developing and executing content driven, subscription-based information and data driven business strategies, executing clear go to market plans, and driving organizational change management programs. Prior to this, from 2015-16, Mr. Waters was Board member, CEO and President of Roubini Global Economics (RGE), a leading independent, global macroeconomic research and analytics firm based in NYC which he sold to Continuum Economics in 2016. From 2008 – 2014, he was Board member, CEO and President of two PE backed businesses, Highline Financial and Yankee Group, leading both to successful strategic exits and as well during 2014 as Head of Digital for Evanta, a leadership development firm focused on CXO best practices and collaborative knowledge exchange, he designed, built, and launched three major new digital subscription-based membership product offerings for the firm.

Terry spent 18 years at Gartner, the leading global IT research, events, and advisory services firm, starting as an account executive when the company was only $10M in revenues and ending as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and a member of the Executive Operating Committee when the company had grown to $1.2B in revenues and $4B+ in market cap (NYSE: IT). Over two stints, he led a significant part of the US sales organization, founded the highly successful EXP membership subscription business, built the global marketing team and led a $150M division of the Gartner global subscription based research business. In between his two stints at Gartner, he was the COO for Screaming Media, an Internet content syndication and business services provider that he helped grow to $25M in revenues and a successful IPO on NASDAQ in 2000.

Mr. Waters started his career at Xerox after graduating from the College of the Holy Cross.