
Paulina Zanela
Co-Founder and chief operating officer, Thalasso
Paulina Zanela is chief operating officer of Thalasso, focused on projects related to climate-change impact in the ocean and coastal resilience. There, she leads a project on sustainable management of sargassum seaweed with a circular, blue-economy approach in the Caribbean. Prior to this, Zanela was the founder and manager of Watara, a nonprofit providing access to clean water with projects in Mexico, India, and Nepal. Previously, she was a project development manager at the Mexican Institute of Behavioral Economics. Zanela has advised over 50 institutions assessing water, climate change-mitigation actions, and coastal cities and communities resilience with attention to social participation for sustainable changes.