Who

De Torrente is the executive director of Doctors Without Borders, which sends volunteer doctors out to deal with medical crises around the world.

Backstory

Swiss-born Torrente had an extended stay in higher education, picking up graduate degrees from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Switzerland and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, as well as a Ph. D. in international relations from the London School of Economics. A career-long fan of Doctors Without Borders, he first served as an administrator in Tanzania and Rwanda and then as emergency coordinator in Somalia, Liberia, the Congo, Macedonia and Afghanistan. In 2001, he arrived in New York to take over as Doctors Without Borders' executive director. He's now their mouthpiece in the U.S and an occasional guest on television news and NPR, where he has discussed the organization's efforts running aid operations in war-torn Afghanistan and tsunami-ravaged Southeast Asia, as well as its 2004 decision to remove its volunteers from Iraq because of the instability in the nation. He's a frequent critic of media coverage of humanitarian crises, or the lack thereof.

Keeping score

De Torrente takes home a salary of over $104,000. Doctors working for Doctors Without Borders in the field do so on a volunteer basis.

True story

In the fall of 2006, De Torrente set up a model refugee camp in the middle of Prospect Park. The exhibit used straw huts and plastic tarps in an effort to recreate the living conditions of Sudanese refugees, in stark contract to the posh Park Slope neighborhood just outside the park's borders. He won over two high-powered converts with his refugee exhibit: As the tents sat in Prospect Park, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt donated $1 million to the organization.

Personal

Since arriving in New York six years ago, de Torrente has made Brooklyn his home. He currently lives in DUMBO.