Region: Brazil

Marcelo Furtado

Marcelo Furtado has over 30 years of experience working in the sustainability field, committed to advancing environmental and social justice through advocacy and philanthropy. Most recently, he became a Principal at Finance for Biodiversity leading the food transition initiative and co-leading the secretariat of the Task Force on Nature Markets. He was a founding partner at the start-up ZCO2/BlockC, a traceability platform for environmental assets using blockchain technology. He was the CEO of Alana Foundation and Arapyaú Institute, family foundations that promote sustainability, social justice and education. Marcelo is a co-founder and was the facilitator of the Brazilian Coalition on Climate Forest and Agriculture, a multi-stakeholder forum with representatives from academia, business and civil society to implement a…

Livia Sobota

Livia Sobota is a Brazilian career diplomat with nearly two decades of experience in public service. She heads the International Cooperation Unit at the Brazilian Embassy in Colombia, focusing her work on that country’s most vulnerable regions. She also served at the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the United Nations in New York. Livia represented Brazil in several UN negotiations on sustainable development, as well as in cross-regional initiatives on humanitarian assistance and building peaceful, just, and inclusive societies. Notably, Livia was one of the three leading negotiators for 130+ developing countries during the 2016 review of the UN Development System. Previously, she worked as an advisor to the Office…

Vivianne Naigeborin

Vivianne Naigeborin is a pioneer in social impact investing in Brazil and serves as Strategic Advisor for Potencia Ventures. Potencia is an international organization that invests in emerging global markets to support an enabling environment for businesses contributing to poverty reduction. Potencia was the first investor and principal strategic partner for a half-dozen key initiatives for businesses with social impact in Brazil, including Vox Capital, the first Brazilian impact investing venture capital firm, and Artemisia, a pioneer organization in the dissemination, promotion. and acceleration of impactful businesses in Brazil. Prior to Potencia, Vivianne worked as a strategic consultant for companies, funds, individuals and citizen sector organizations in the field of…

Maria "Masha" Lisitsyna

Maria "Masha" Lisitsyna is a Senior Managing Legal Officer for Criminal Justice at the Open Society Justice Initiative. She focuses on criminal justice reforms as well as litigation and advocacy on improving protection from torture in Eurasia, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia. Previously, Maria was a researcher for Human Rights Watch, working on civil and political rights in Turkmenistan and the rights of migrant workers in Russia and Kazakhstan. She is the founder and former president of the Youth Human Rights Group, a prominent Kyrgyz NGO specializing in human rights monitoring and education. In 2005, she served as a member of Kyrgyzstan’s Constitutional Council, the body convened to…

Denis Mizne

Denis Mizne heads the private foundation established by global entrepreneur Jorge Paulo Lemann to increase the quality of public education in Brazil. He is also chairman of the board of Instituto Sou da Paz and serves on other boards in the areas of education, human rights and public safety. Before joining the Foundation, Denis was founder and Executive Director of Instituto Sou da Paz, a leading Brazilian NGOs focused on violence prevention. He has contributed to the approval of the "Disarmament Statute," one of the most modern pieces of legislation to control the use of guns. After being enacted, the law helped reduce homicides for the first time in decades…

Neide Maria da Silva

Neide Maria da Silva is Founder and Executive Director of Equipe Técnica de Assessoria Pesquisa e Ação Social, one of Brazil's most important non-governmental organizations. She has played a crucial role in building community organizations and civil society especially in the context of resistance to military rule. The organization's activities focus on gender, violence, human rights, and land security issues and is active in monitoring state and municipal government urban policy. They work to protect children, youth, and families in slums, monitoring orphanages and protecting urban squatters from being evicted and brutalized. Neide has also been involved in global youth projects meant to encourage the social inclusion of vulnerable children…

Vinicius Marques de Carvalho

Vinicius Marques de Carvalho is a lawyer with deep experience in competition law, public policy, and economic regulation. He is currently in charge of the anti-corruption agenda as the Minister of the Office of the Comptroller General for the government of Brazil. Vinicius previously served as president of CADE, the Brazilian antitrust authority. Vinicius successfully led the transition from the previous to the current Brazilian system for competition defense, which raised the bar for competition enforcement in Brazil, resulting in CADE's recognition by the Global Competition Review as the Agency of the Year in 2014. Vinicius was also the vice-chair of implementation at the International Competition Network and a professor of…

Good Society Forum: Education in times of COVID: Challenges of a socially distanced classroom