Atila Roque heads the foundation’s Rio de Janeiro office and oversees all grantmaking in Brazil. Prior to joining Ford, he served as executive director of Amnesty International Brazil, leading the implementation of a comprehensive national human rights strategy. Before that, he was executive director of the Institute of Economic and Social Studies (INESC), which conducts policy analysis and advocacy on public budget and human rights and research on inequality, gender discrimination, and racial justice.

Earlier in his career, Atila served as executive director of ActionAid International USA in Washington, DC, and worked for 17 years in different roles at the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE), one of the most important NGOs in Brazil. He also served as director of the Brazilian Association of NGOs and as coordinator of the Brazilian chapter of the Social Watch network. Atila spent three years as a visiting researcher at the Pacific-Asia Research Center in Tokyo, studying the environmental and social impact of Japanese infrastructure investment in Brazil. He also held a guest professorship at the Rio Branco Institute-Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he taught a course on foreign policy and civil society.

Atila also served on the board of directors for International Budget Partnership, Just Associates, Greenpeace Brazil, and the Group of Institutes, Foundations and Enterprises (GIFE) as well as of the Brazil Human Rights Fund (Fundo Brasil de Direitos Humanos). He earned a master’s degree in political science from the Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro (IUPERJ) and a bachelor’s degree in history from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.