Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Paulo Speroni is truly passionate about Brazil and his hometown. Holding two Bachelor degrees, one in Social Sciences at FGV-RJ and other in International Relations at PUC-Rio, he acquired a broad perspective of social challenges at the local and international levels. He has taken leadership positions in public agencies and NGOs in Rio de Janeiro, where he was directly engaged in designing and implementing public policies within favelas. These experiences shaped his vision that all public policies must be defined through a networked decision-making process based on qualified information and respecting the specificity of each context. In this way, the resulting actions allow the resident populations to be the protagonists in the process of development of their own communities. Currently, he is pursuing a Master of Public Administration at Columbia University with an emphasis on Urban and Social Policy. His academic focuses are innovations in participatory public management which can lead our society to a better model of governance, marked by ethics and transparency, that promotes social justice combined with economic efficiency.