Geena Rocero

Geena Rocero, born and raised in Manila, Philippines, is a four-time Emmy Nominated and an Award Winning Producer, Writer and Director. She’s also a Model, Public Speaker, Trans Rights Advocate and co-host of the Webby Awards honoree TV Show "ASPIREist," broadcasted on HLN/CNN. She is the 2023 recipient of The A1 Award in Gold House’s A100 List of the most impactful AAPI’s along with Netflix Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria and Vanity Fair’s Editor in Chief Radhika Jones.

Her memoir "Horse Barbie" was released on May 30, 2023 by Penguin Random House imprint, The Dial Press. She recently directed and executive produced the 2022 EMMY and GLAAD Media Awards nominated, and 2022 Webby Awards Honoree, "Caretakers," a four-part original documentary series with PBS/WNET featuring stories of Filipino American frontline healthcare workers that premiered on October 8, 2021.

She’s an advisory board member of SeeHer- the most influential global coalition of marketers, agencies, media companies and entertainment leaders working to increase the representation and accurate portrayal of all women and girls to transform society. She is one of “Top 25 Transgender Persons Who Influences Culture" by TIME Magazine.

She made history as the first trans woman Ambassador for Miss Universe Nepal- an honor that’s been bestowed to her as part of the Miss Universe Organization pageant system accepting trans women into the competition.

On March 31, 2014, she made history as the First trans person to speak about transgender issues at the TED Conference main stage. In honor of International Transgender Day of Visibility, Rocero came out as transgender at the annual TED Conference, her viral talk has since been viewed close to 5 million times and translated in 32 languages. Rocero is the founder of Gender Proud, a media production company that tells stories on what it means to be trans and gender non-conforming.

She, with Gender Proud Productions produced and presented "Beautiful As I Want to Be" series and TV special on LogoTV highlighting trans youth, and received the 2016 GLAAD Media Award. Gender Proud also produced "Willing and Able", a 2017 GLAAD Media nominated web series about transgender employment with Fusion TV and worked with Fusion/Univision to produce a TV documentary about transgender athletes, "No League of Their Own" and won 2017 Association of LGBTQ Journalists Best in Health and Fitness Coverage.

She co-executive produced the 2018 GLAAD Media awards nominated "Made To Model" a documentary on 9 Pioneers and emerging trans model in collaboration with LogoTV, MTV and VH1.

Rocero has spoken at the White House, World Economic Forum, United Nations, State Department, Fortune 500 Companies and been featured on E's I am Cait, Magazine Cover of Candy Magazine, Vanity Fair: Trans America, Marriott's #LoveTravels Campaign and CoverGirl Cosmetics #GirlsCan Campaign. She was on the cover of Harper's Bazaar India.

On September 2018, published by Simon and Schuster, she contributed a chapter in the NY Times Bestseller book “American like Me” by actress America Ferrera with contributors like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjani and many others.

She's a board member of NY LGBT Center. As the 2020 National Chair for Stonewall Day in June, she helped raised close to 100k for Black and Brown led LGBTQ organizations affected by COVID-19. She’s a partner on FamilyQ.Org, a queer led volunteer network distributor of FDA-approved surgical grade PPE’s to front-line organizations. To date, they’ve donated more than 100,000 masks.

She has been featured in media publications such as CNN, Al Jazeera America, MSNBC, Today Show, NHK World Channel, HuffPost Live, New York Magazine, Mashable, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair, Elle, Entertainment Weekly, People, Variety, Take Part, The Advocate, MTV and others