Abraji announces Adriana Garcia as its new executive secretary

The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) has announced that Adriana Garcia will be its new executive secretary. A journalist, professor and strategic designer, Garcia will replace Cristina Zahar, who was at the helm of the organization for five and a half years.

The new leader of Abraji's team of employees and collaborators was born in Uruguay, migrated to Brazil with her family at the age of 5, and has become a Brazilian citizen. She holds a master's degree in Journalism, Market and Technology from the São Paulo University School of Communication (ECA-USP). She was digital director of the Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio, in 2016, and worked for more than two decades in media outlets such as Reuters agency, Exame, Veja SP, and Folha de São Paulo. She is also a JSK fellow at Stanford University (John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship Program), in California, where she furthered her studies on innovation and Design Thinking.

TEDx speaker, she was a professor at the postgraduate Investigative Journalism program at the Brazilian Institute of Education, Development and Research (IDP) and at the Journalism undergraduate program at Cásper Líbero and ESPM Higher Education Schools. Adriana Garcia has also been a Google Teaching Fellow for 9 months and has trained more than 5,000 communicators on innovation and agile methodologies. She is co-founder of Orbitalab, an innovation lab for digital media projects.

Some of Adriana’s missions will be fundraising for projects, the Abraji International Congress of Investigative Journalism, courses, and other projects of the association. She will also be the institutional representative of the association in Brazil and abroad, in addition to performing other tasks listed in this notice.

Cristina Zahar has taken on a new challenge by becoming the first Brazilian Program coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Her new email is [email protected]. Adriana Garcia’s email is: [email protected].