Eleni Myrivili is a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and senior advisor for resilience and sustainability to the City of Athens. A tenured professor with executive experience in local government, she is an expert on urban resilience and climate adaptation, national borders and cultural theory.

Elected to city government (2014-2019) she served as Athens’ deputy mayor for urban nature and climate resilience pioneering multimillion-euro programs in equitable blue and green infrastructure development. Overseeing a staff of 400, she introduced a clear vision for climate adaptation and urban ecology, driving collaborative design and digital solutions that also protected the city’s most vulnerable populations. Her work on heat resilience established Athens’ leadership in international urban climate change responses.

In 2015, she was appointed the city’s chief resilience officer and launched in 2017 the Athens Resilience Strategy for 2030 as part of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative. She established the first office of resilience and sustainability in the city, embedding resilient methodologies, influencing strategic planning, and building capacity within the city’s administration.