Cristiane Fontes (Krika)

Krika has been the Executive Director of WRI Brasil since August 2023. She will have the challenge of strengthening WRI Brasil’s performance and sealing partnerships in the Climate, Cities and Forests, Agriculture and Land Use agendas.

Krika began her career in communications, working in the press and, later, in environmental NGOs in Brazil, such as Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica and Instituto Socioambiental (ISA). In 2007, she moved into program management, becoming Director of the Climate Change and Public Diplomacy Program at the British Embassy and receiving an award from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) for the program’s achievements in 2010.

From 2012 to 2016, she worked at the Ford Foundation as the first coordinator of the Brazil Initiative of the Climate and Land Use Alliance (Clua), an alliance of foundations that defend forests and sustainable land use as an essential part of the global response to climate change.

Acting as a consultant between 2016 and 2019, she supported the strategic planning processes of several organizations and initiatives, such as the Environmental Unit of the Roberto Marinho Foundation (FRM).

Between 2019 and 2023, she lived in Oxford, leading the Brazil and Regional Partnerships Program at Global Canopy, a data-driven organization that targets the market forces that destroy nature.

Krika has also been developing a series of personal projects, including Ancestral Narratives – Perceptions about Indigenous Peoples in Brazil in the Last Decade, qualitative research based on interviews with different segments and analysis of media channels; and Planeta em Transe, a series of interviews with national and international voices of emerging climate actions published by Brazilian national newspaper Folha de S Paulo.

Krika has a degree in Journalism from the Faculty of Social Communication Cásper Líbero and a master’s degree in Interactive Media from Goldsmiths College, University of London.

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