Alessandra Orofino
Co-founder of NOSSAS
Alessandra is a specialist in mass communication and large-scale mobilization, with extensive experience in grassroots mobilization, people organizing, and the development of impact products for television and film. She is currently Executive Director of Peri, a new media company based in Brazil. Before that, she co-founded NOSSAS, where she was Executive Director for 12 years. She also created and directed, for 7 seasons, the political satire show Greg News with Gregório Duvivier, on HBO. Alessandra directed several opinion videos for The New York Times and is the lead producer of two feature-length documentaries directed by Petra Costa, the latest of which was nominated for an Oscar. Alessandra sits on the Board of Directors of three organizations with a strong focus on cultural strategy and narratives: the Luminate Foundation, the Meliore Foundation, and the newly created Institute of Culture, Communication and Impact (ICCI). She is also a member of the Social Impact Committee of Purpose, a global movement-building agency based in New York, and of the Advisory Board of the Brazil LAB at Princeton University, where she teaches courses on organizing strategies and mass communication. After the 2022 elections, Alessandra was invited to President Lula’s transition team as one of the coordinators of the working group linked to the Ministry of Communications. Her opinion articles have been published by The New York Times, Libération, El PAÍS, Folha de S. Paulo, Stanford Social Innovation Review and the BBC. Alessandra is a Fellow of the Obama Foundation and, in 2022, received the prestigious Skoll Award for Social Innovation.