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The team
Our operations are cutting-edge, in that our global workforce is distributed. We work with a collective of vetted collaborators around the world, creating measurable and impactful results.
APOLLA ECHINO - FOUNDER, CREATIVE DIRECTOR + FILMMAKER
Apolla is an award-winning filmmaker of mixed descent (Métis, Italian and German) who specializes in telling stories at the intersection of commercial and documentary, with a strong focus on women and BIPOC.
As a director with large-scale production experience, she has an intimate understanding of how the world behind the camera shapes the one in front of it.
Having paved a unique path as a filmmaker by tackling subject matters and cultures that others may find daunting, Apolla has created a name in the documentary film and commercial world – adding heart and soul to otherwise male-dominant fields. Her breakout film, about surfing the South Island of New Zealand in the Winter as a solo female, gained global recognition and added the missing female perspective to the surf world.
Her documentary films include "Hard Labour", about a transgender woman working in the oilfields of Alberta, premiering in 2022; “The DNA of Adventure”, which premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, and a documentary series about adventure travel as a solo woman (“A Woman’s Guide to the World” – Air New Zealand, Outside TV). Apolla’s 2015 feature film was “A New York Love Story,” about a love affair between a dancer and painter.
As producer, Apolla has led some of the most important conservation documentary films in recent years – 2019’s “The Game Changers”, with Executive Producer James Cameron, and the Academy Award-winning team behind “The Cove”, and “We Are One”, about the anti-poaching and conservation efforts to protect our most endangered species.
As an avid winter surfer in New York, she’s most inspired in the cold waters, waiting for the next wave.
NILS KNOOP - CO-FOUNDER, STRATEGY + COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
Nils is a brand activist, storyteller and passionate about the oceans, rivers, mountains and protecting life outdoors. Although his home base is officially in Hamburg, Germany and Baja California Sur, Mexico, Nils is working remotely from around the globe. With 17+ years of experience in marketing and communications strategy, he is an expert when it comes to inspiring and impactful storytelling.
As a former sports journalist, Nils worked as a consultant for Red Bull and several football clubs in Germany and Brazil before moving to Nike in 2013 as Corporate Communications Manager.
In 2016 Nils joined the Ben & Jerry's herd where he oversaw all brand, digital and PR activities with a focus on brand equity building and social activism. In 2021, he supported the Seventh Generation team leading the communication strategy around the global expansion through “eCom with Impact”. Prior to joining PCX to make nature plastic waste free through accredited plastic credits, Nils was Chief Marketing Officer of Planet A Foods with the goal to revolutionise the chocolate industry by introducing the world's first cocoa-free chocolate.
Today, Nils works as a strategic advisor and consultant to several impact organizations and tries to implement a waste management system in his local community in San Juanico, Baja California Sur, Mexico.