Virtus is the brand name of the International Sports Federation for athletes with intellectual impairment and is a founding member of the International Paralympic Committee. Registered as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation in the UK (1173901)
Nick Parr
Executive Director
Nick joined Virtus in January 2013 as the organisation’s first Executive Director and is responsible for operational and strategic management.
He previously held a national role in sport for athletes with an intellectual disability in England and has also served on the Executive Committee of Virtus Europe.
Nick is based in United Kingdom.
Debbie van Biesen
Virtus Academy Manager
Debbie joins as the Virtus Academy Manager – a new initiative to develop a global hub of research, training, and education to be launched in 2021.
After seven years of full-time postdoctoral research at KU Leuven (Belgium), Debbie will divide her time across both organisations, leveraging on international and evidenced-based knowledge of elite athletes with intellectual disability and autism. She has published more than 25 peer-reviewed scientific articles in top journals in herfield.
Debbie’s research specialised in the domains of ‘Adapted Physical Activity’ and ‘Disability Sport’, with the focus of her research on the role of cognition on sports performance among elite Paralympic athletes with intellectual disabilities.
Mousumi Mazumder
Marketing and Communications Officer
Mousumi joined Virtus as the Marketing and Communications Officer in February 2022.
Mousumi first supported Virtus first time during her Masters’s degree in 2018 – by covering the 2018 European Summer Games in Paris and continued volunteering for Virtus at numerous events including the 2019 Global Games and Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games while working on her full-time job at GEMS Cambridge International School,Sharjah, UAE. She was promoted to her current role and joined Virtus full-time in February 2022.
Mousumi has a strong passion to work in the para-sport sector and brings fresh ideas to the team.
Mousumi is based in India.
Nithi Suppiah
Advisor Marketing and Communications
Nithi joined Virtus in May 2020 in a consultancy role and is the Virtus brand champion. She leads the delivery of consistent and on-brand communications, strategic marketing campaigns for Virtus events, and provides advisory guidance to Virtus event LOCs.
She brings fifteen years’ experience in engagement, communications, marketing strategy, branding, and management within private, public, and not-for-profit sectors from Australia, NZ, USA, Malaysia and UK.
As a generalist in marketing, communications, stakeholder engagement and public relations strategy and advice, Nithi enjoys working with diverse organisations that are willing to try new things never done before and to contribute to organisational innovation.
Nithi is based in Australia.