Andrea Cristina Mercado
Andrea Cristina Mercado, the 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, Mercado has been organizing in communities of color and immigrant communities for 20 years and helped build Mujeres Unidas y Activas in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mercado is one of the co-founders of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and led the California Domestic Workers Coalition, a statewide effort to include domestic workers in labor laws, which led to the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights being signed into law in 2013. 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.
Mercado is a graduate of Brown University, a Fulbright Scholar, an Emily’s List awardee and was named Miami’s best activist for 2021 by the Miami New Times.
