Andrew Otazo

Andrew Otazo is a nationally recognized environmental activist, award-winning author, and communications expert.

Andrew removed 43,000 pounds of trash from South Florida’s mangrove forests and ocean. He carried a 35-pound bag of mangrove trash (currently in the History Miami Museum’s permanent collection) the length of the 2019 Miami Marathon and led a team that hauled a 130-pound trash cart throughout the 2020 Miami Marathon. These efforts raised over $30,500 to protect Miami’s coastal habitats.

Andrew Otazo is the CEO of ARO Communications, an agency that specializes in formulating paid, earned, and owned communications strategies to help organizations successfully launch products and services. He previously worked at several international public relations agencies and is an award winning Cuban American author who wrote a book titled The Miami Creation Myth.

Andrew served as the executive director of the Cuba Study Group, where he advocated to policymakers on Capitol Hill. He published 17 academic publications that sold over 10,000 copies while a research associate at Harvard Business School. Andrew also worked as a researcher at the Harvard Kennedy School and helped implement U.S. foreign policy at the State Department. As Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s personal assistant, he facilitated the decision-making process of one of the world’s highest-level policymakers.

Andrew won an International Latino Book Award and was named to Brickell Magazine’s Top 20 Under 40 List, is a New Tropic’s Locals to Know, Local 10’s Most Treasured Citizen, Miami’s Next Leader, FAES Latino Leader in Politics, and received two Proclamations from the Village of Key Biscayne. He has lectured at the Harvard Law School, Columbia Business School, University of Miami, Cornell, Clemson, Miami Dade College and local South Florida middle and high schools.