Andrea Cristina Mercado

Executive Director

Andrea Cristina Mercado (she/her/ella), Executive Director of Florida Rising, leads scaled civic engagement programs, and strategic campaigns that center Black and Brown communities. Florida Rising is the result of the merger of New Florida Majority and Organize Florida. Under her leadership New Florida Majority registered over 150,000 Floridians to vote. The daughter of immigrants from South America, who made South Florida home, Andrea has been organizing in communities of color and immigrant communities for twenty years, she helped build Mujeres Unidas y Activas, a grassroots organization focused on domestic violence and immigrant rights  in the San Francisco Bay Area.

She is also one of the Co-Founders of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, where she served as Director of Organizing. She led the California Domestic Worker Coalition, a statewide effort to include domestic workers in labor laws, which successfully passed Domestic Worker Bill of Rights Legislation in 2013, and over seven states have now passed similar legislation. She went on to lead nationally recognized campaigns for immigrant and worker rights such as We Belong Together, and the 100 women 100 mile pilgrimage for migrant dignity. The mother of two is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese. She is a graduate of Brown University, Fulbright Scholar and Emily’s list awardee, recently named best South Florida Activist by the Miami New Times.