SILVIO JOSE CARRILLO
San Francisco Bay Area
(m) 415.244.8281 (e) Silvio.Carrillo@gmail.com (w) SilvioCarrillo.com
Who I am
I’m a bilingual Emmy Award-winning journalist and producer based in Sebastopol, California. My career has been built on one core skill: taking complex, often urgent information and turning it into clear, accurate, public-facing communication — whether that’s a broadcast or digital story, a written op-ed, or a congressional briefing.
That work has taken me from CNN’s Washington bureau to newsrooms in Hong Kong, from California wildfire coverage to Capitol Hill. Along the way I’ve earned six Emmy Awards for cinematography, editing, and producing — including stories on environmental racism, the California recall, and reparations policy.
What shaped me
I grew up watching my parents — my father from Guatemala, my mother from Honduras — navigate a new country with little margin for error. That experience taught me early what it means to not be heard, and why it matters when someone takes the time to listen.
The murder of my aunt, Berta Cáceres — a Honduran environmental and human rights activist — in 2016 deepened that understanding. Her death led me to write op-eds for The New York Times and to advocate on Capitol Hill for the Berta Cáceres Human Rights Act. That experience showed me that credible, clear communication isn’t just a professional skill — it’s how communities get heard.
What I do now
I’m currently freelancing and in transition — available for consulting and communications strategy work, particularly where bilingual outreach, community storytelling, or media relations are part of the challenge.
What I bring is access and experience most organizations don’t have in-house: relationships with journalists and editors across major outlets, firsthand knowledge of how stories get told and by whom, and the ability to communicate across languages and cultures without losing the substance.
I’ve also trained American Red Cross staff in media preparedness and taught multimedia production at the graduate level at Hong Kong Baptist University. The work is different in each context. The underlying skill — helping people and organizations communicate clearly and be heard — is the same.
I love photography/cinematography, playing and watching soccer, our two dogs (Luna & Guapo), and going camping/hiking with my wife and son.