Paulo Higa is a public servant in the Specialist in Public Policy and Government Management (EPPGG) career track of Brazil’s federal government and has lived in Brasília, Brazil’s capital, since 2026. Before moving into public administration, he spent over a decade as a journalist specializing in technology. He began his career in the public sector at São Paulo City Hall and now serves in the federal civil service, at the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD). In his spare time, he runs marathons.
Public
He has been a public servant in the Specialist in Public Policy and Government Management (EPPGG) career track, at the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services, since 2026. He serves on the Board of Directors of the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD). He was a Public Policy and Government Management Analyst (APPGG) at São Paulo City Hall, where he worked in the strategic planning unit and in the Secretary’s Office of the Municipal Department of Education on governance, data analysis, and human resources regulations. He took part in the overhaul of the Prêmio de Desempenho Educacional, the city’s educational performance bonus, which adopted criteria focused on learning and on reducing inequalities, and in the development of a first-of-its-kind tool that let roughly 80,000 municipal education employees estimate how much they would receive. He also helped prepare the city’s 2026–2029 strategic plan, building data dashboards and communication materials for the listening sessions with staff across the municipal school network.
Private
In the private sector, he began his career in 2012 as an editor at Tecnoblog. In 2018, he became executive editor and a partner in the outlet, leading a team of more than 30 people and helping to turn it into the largest independent technology website in Brazil, with more than 30 million monthly pageviews. Until 2023, he served as head of operations at Tecnoblog and co-host of Tecnocast, Brazil’s leading podcast on technology, innovation, and business. Over that period, he traveled to dozens of countries to cover the major technology trade shows and electronics manufacturers’ events, reviewed hundreds of gadgets, and published thousands of articles. He also worked as a writer for Globo.com, the digital arm of Brazil’s largest media group, and as a technology columnist on Rádio Globo, a nationwide radio network. He won the Especialistas Award, from the Brazilian trade magazine Negócios da Comunicação, in the Consumer Electronics category for three consecutive years (2020, 2021, and 2022) and was a finalist for the Comunique-se Award in the Technology category in 2019 and 2021.
Personal
Beyond his professional career, he is passionate about cooking and running. He enjoys trying wines from different regions and occasionally ventures into varieties with hard-to-pronounce names, such as Gewürztraminer and Zweigelt, though his favorite grape remains Zinfandel. Among his 12,000 km (7,500 miles) of running are marathons in Brasília, Rio de Janeiro (where he returned to take on the 63 km, or 39 miles, of the Desafio Cidade Maravilhosa), São Paulo, New York, and Curitiba, as well as a 55 km mountain ultramarathon with 2,682 meters of elevation gain (about 34 miles and 8,800 feet). He also has a curious fascination with numbers.
He does not use social media but can be reached by email.