Biography
Alessandra Orofino is a visionary cultural strategist and narrative producer who understands that the climate crisis cannot be solved through policy alone. It requires a fundamental shift in how entire populations see themselves and their relationship to the natural world.
“I was born and raised in the vibrant city of Rio de Janeiro, right by the ocean,” Alessandra reflects. “My parents came from very different socioeconomic backgrounds, and their union and my upbringing gave me a unique perspective on the extreme inequalities that define life in Brazil. I came to see them not just as economic or social issues, but as matters of life and death, shaping who gets to live in dignity, who is exposed to violence, and who is most vulnerable to systemic neglect.”
Alessandra’s career has spanned multiple domains. She co-founded Nossas in 2011, a civic technology and advocacy lab that mobilized millions across Brazil for rights-based causes including climate justice, gender equity, and urban policy. Her unconventional path also led her to become the showrunner of “Greg News,” an award-winning weekly political satire show on HBO Latin America that ran from 2017 to 2023.
As the founder of Peri Productions, she works at the intersection of climate justice, storytelling, and democratic transformation through crafting stories that spark action, shift worldviews, and expand the collective imagination of a just future.
Alessandra holds degrees from Columbia University in Economics and Human Rights, and from Sciences Po in Political Science. She is an Ashoka Fellow, Obama Fellow, and Skoll Social Entrepreneurship Awardee, and has served as a TED Speaker and participant in the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Civic Participation.
Balancing her demanding work with motherhood, Alessandra credits her intentional approach to partnership as crucial to her ability to lead complex, creative work.
“The best advice I’ve ever received was to choose my life partner with intention,” she says. “That may sound personal, but it has shaped everything. I’m a mother of two—a six-year-old and a seven-month-old—and I lead complex, demanding work that requires creativity, focus, and long hours. I could not do any of it without the support of the person I chose to build a family and a life with.”
Breakthrough program
Alessandra Orofino was selected for the Climate Breakthrough Award program in 2025.
Alessandra wants to launch a groundbreaking communications initiative that aims to scale cultural change and galvanize public commitment across Brazil to protecting the Amazon. This is an ambitious approach to Amazon conservation because, ultimately, making it central to Brazilian national identity can stop deforestation and help enshrine durable policy protections for the Amazon.
The urgency is clear. While deforestation in Brazil declined significantly from the early 2000s, it has been on the rise again since 2019. Despite renewed conservation efforts, 6,288 square kilometers, roughly the size of the US state of Delaware, were cleared in 2024 in Brazil alone. According to a 2023 study from RAISG, in just five years, the entire Amazon region could lose nearly half of what it lost over the past 20 years.
Alessandra’s inspiration comes from observing how Brazil’s agricultural lobby has successfully transformed the country’s cultural landscape over the past decade. Despite already having significant political power, agribusiness made a strategic push into mass media, creating a “cowboy pride” that taps into national identity.
“Brazilians need to see environmental stewardship as central to who we are as a people and as a country,” Alessandra explains. “Brazil is not just an economic force; it’s also home to some of the richest biodiversity on Earth. But too often, we are told that our only function is to exploit our natural resources, sacrificing long-term value shared by the many for short-term growth that benefits the few.”
While she founded Peri Productions in 2023 and has already hired a small team and developed a few initial projects, her ambition is to scale this work to a new level and set ambitious goals to reach millions of Brazilians. If successful, her initiative could transform Brazil’s relationship with its natural heritage. According to emissions analysts, decreasing Amazon deforestation levels 80% from their high after ten years of this strategy would lead to 0.51 gigatons of annual avoided emissions.
More importantly, it would create a Brazil where environmental protection is no longer seen as elite or abstract, but as part of what it means to be Brazilian. This initiative can help build lasting public support for policies that
protect biodiversity, uphold Indigenous rights, and preserve Brazil’s role as a global environmental leader.
