Irene-Fariña-2022-Edit

IRENE FARIÑA

Senior Advisor, Latin America

San José, Costa Rica

 

Irene Fariña has spent the last 15 years promoting corporate responsibility—as a consultant and internal corporate champion. As Article One’s Advisor for Latin America, Irene leads our engagements with a range of industries across the region. These engagements have included conducting child rights impact assessments in the agriculture sector in Costa Rica and Panama and assessing the technology needs of migrant children in El Salvador and Mexico.

Irene has built her career in the fields of communications, public affairs and marketing while working for companies including Citi and Kohler. In 2012 Irene launched PhilanTropics, a small boutique consultancy focused on advancing corporate social responsibility, philanthropy and human rights. Her work with PhilanTropics involved advising and building capacity for local and international clients in the private, NGO, academia, government and civil society sectors.

From 2014 to 2016, Irene led UNICEF Costa Rica’s Partnerships and Fundraising team. In this capacity she launched UNICEF’s Children’s Rights and Business Principles. She help to implement the Principles with companies in the telecom, toy, and food & beverage industries. These partnerships included conducting corporate assessments and developing tailored actions plans to embed respect for child rights across the business. In addition, Irene coordinated a multi-company working group on children’s rights. Her work at UNICEF has been recognized as a Best Practice case study for Latin America.

Irene studied Communications and Advertising at Universidad Latina before obtaining a Licentiate degree in International Business from ULACIT. She has also received a certificate in Corporate Social Responsibility from Harvard Business School and Media Strategies for  Social Change from the Golda Meir Center in Israel. Irene has served on the Board of Directors of several NGOs including Junior Achievement, the Costa Rican National Theatre Store and currently in Internet Society (ISOC) Costa Rica where she leads the Human Rights Working Group, and Internet Society New York where she works on technology and diversity and inclusion practices.