Grono spent a number of years growing up on the square-rigged sailing ship “Eye of the Wind”. With his father as captain, Grono sailed from England to Australia from October 1976 to December 1977, accompanied by his mother, younger brother and 25 other crew members. The trip took them to the West Indies, the Panama Canal, the Galapagos, Easter Island, Pitcairn, Tahiti and Vanuatu, and many others. He and his family repeated the voyage in 1981/1982, this time also taking part in the filming of “Nate and Hayes” in Fiji with actor Tommy Lee Jones.
In 2003, Grono began working for the International Crisis Group, the world's leading conflict prevention NGO based in Brussels, Belgium. He became the Deputy President and COO in 2008, responsible for the oversight and management of the organisation's programmes and operations in nearly thirty countries around the world. As part of this role, he testified on conflict and human rights issues before the European, UK, Dutch, and Australian Parliaments. He joined the WalkFree Foundation as its CEO in 2012. During his time as the CEO, the Walk Free movement gained over 5 million supporters. In 2013, the Foundation launched the first ever Global Slavery Index. Grono has written widely on international justice, conflict prevention, human rights, and modern slavery in the New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Huffington Post and elsewhere. In December 2015, Grono was an expert witness before the UN Security Council at its hearing on Trafficking in Persons in Situations of Conflict. Grono has been co-chair of the Jo Cox Foundation since late 2016, and a board member of Girls Not Brides, the Global Partnership to End Child Marriage, since 2015.
In 2013, the Walk Free Foundation joined with and the Legatum Foundation to establish the Freedom Fund, the world's first philanthropic fund dedicated to identifying and investing in the most effective frontline efforts to end modern slavery. The Freedom Fund was announced by President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiativein September 2013, who declared, “This is a huge deal and we should all support this.” The Fund focuses its work on areas where slavery is prevalent using a “hotspot” funding model. It identifies effective local anti-slavery initiatives and invests to improve their effectiveness and impact. Global initiatives, which coordinate efforts and resources around industries where slavery is common, are also used. The Fund also strives to strengthen the global movement of activists, experts and donors by providing the platform, knowledge and tools for them to connect and work together more effectively. The Fund has worked with some 100 frontline partners around the world to directly liberate 27,397 people from slavery and return over 56,181 at risk children back to school. Overall, its programs have positively impacted the lives of over 686,468 of those most vulnerable to exploitation. In the years before the Walk Free Foundation Nick was with International Crisis Group working at its central office in Brussels.
