Entrepreneur and thought leader.
Co-founder and President of the Igarapé Institute. Founder of the Green Bridge Facility, a gateway for high-integrity green enterprise in Brazil and the Amazon Basin, and of RegeneraBioLab, a hub for protection, restoration, and regenerative practices in the Atlantic Forest.

Ilona serves on several boards, including Re.green; the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Natural Capital; the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits (IAPB); and the boards of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Foundation (FFHC), and the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI).

She holds a Master’s degree in International Studies from Uppsala University in Sweden and is an affiliated scholar at Princeton University’s Brazil Lab. She was also a public policy fellow at Columbia University in New York.

In 2023, she received the Bertha Lutz Diploma from the Federal Senate, and in 2018, the Order of Merit for Public Security from Brazil’s Ministry of Public Security. In 2020, she was named one of the “World’s Top 50 Thinkers” by the British magazine Prospect, and in 2015, she was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.

She is the author of several books, a columnist for Folha de São Paulo, and host of the podcast and TV series Você Pode Mudar o Mundo (“You Can Change the World”). She was also Executive Secretary of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, led gun control campaigns, and worked for five years in investment banking in the beginning of her career.

Social Networks:

Instagram: ilonadecarvalho
LinkedIn: ilonacarvalho
Twitter: @IlonaSzaboC
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilona_Szabó_de_Carvalho

In Portuguese:

Podcast: https://igarape.org.br/vocepodemudaromundo
Columns at Folha de São Paulo: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/colunas/ilona-szabo/
Gol Magazine: https://igarape.org.br/revista-gol-com-ilona/
Book A Defesa do Espaço Cívico: https://amzn.to/3ddP9h0
Book Drogas: as histórias que não te contaram: https://drogasolivro.com.br/