Maria A. Ressa

Maria Ressa

About Maria A. Ressa

Maria Ressa has been a journalist in Asia for nearly 40 years. As Rappler’s co-founder and CEO, she endured constant political harassment and arrests by the Duterte government. She is a Professor of Practice at Columbia University and co-leads it's Technology Initiative.

Maria was named 2021's Nobel Peace Prize laureate along with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, for “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace.” For her courage and work on disinformation and ‘fake news,’ Maria was named Time Magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year, was among its 100 Most Influential People of 2019 and one of its Most Influential Women of the Century. She was also part of BBC’s 100 most inspiring and influential women in 2019, and Prospect magazine’s world’s top 50 thinkers. She has won numerous awards for her contributions to journalism and human rights.

She headed the largest news group in the Philippines, ABS-CBN, managing more than a thousand journalists for 6 years. Before that, she focused on investigating terrorism in Southeast Asia as CNN’s Jakarta bureau chief; she opened CNN’s Manila bureau in 1987. She wrote Seeds of Terror: An Eyewitness Account of al-Qaeda’s Newest Center of Operations in Southeast Asia, From Bin Laden to Facebook: 10 Days of Abduction, 10 Years of Terrorism, and How to Stand up to a Dictator.

For speaking engagements and projects, please write [email protected].