Eleni Myrivili
She/Her/Hers
Eleni (Lenio) Myrivili is Chief Heat Officer of Athens, Greece and was recently announced the Global Chief Heat Officer to UN Habitat, working to bring solutions to extreme heat to cities in 60 countries around the world. Lenio is also senior advisor for urban heat and a Senior Fellow at the Arsht-Rock Center at the Atlantic Council. She is currently a member of the EU Mission Board for Adaptation at the European Commission and co-chairs the Steering Committee of the global Resilient Cities Network (R-Cities). Previously a tenured professor with executive experience in local government, she is an expert on urban resilience and extreme heat, and climate adaptation, national borders and cultural theory. In 2020, she completed a year as a Loeb Fellow of Advanced Environmental Studies 2020, at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Elected to city government (2017-2019) 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.This Strategy anchored a 55 million euros loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB). 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.
