Stefanie Brendl

Shark Allies Founder and Executive Director

Stefanie Brendl is our founder and Executive Director. Apart from growing up in Germany, Stef has lived in countless stunning locations around the world, most notably Guam, Bali and Hawaii. She has always been keen on big animals, caring for and training horses is where she started out. But when she made her way to the ocean, she got the shark bug immediately, and immersed herself in underwater photography and video production. From there, Stef clocked hundreds of hours of diving with shark of all shapes and sizes, and has been working in ocean related professions for years, one of them being a shark diving operation in Hawaii called Hawaii Shark Encounters. Stef owned and operated with Jimmy Hall since 2002, and has since sold the business to new owners. In recent years, her political work has put Stefanie on the forefront of shark conservation, in particular in the Pacific region. She was a driving force behind the first shark fin trade ban in the Nation in Hawaii in 2010 and has since then dedicated her life to the conservation of sharks, working on many other fin bans and shark sanctuary campaigns. Stef has worked as a team member or consultant for several other great NGOs and founded Shark Allies in 2007 in Hawaii. In 2014 she brought the organization to Los Angeles, where she met most of the core Shark Allies members. Stef is a shark warrior to say the least, she packed up her life and moved it to Florida for the recent #NoFinFL campaign. Dedicated to the cause doesn't even scratch the surface when describing Stef. We all have learned so much from her political strategizing for this campaign, without her creative spin on every hurdle thrown at us, there would be no #NoFinFL. She is also the Executive Producer and lead of the documentary Extinction Soup. Stef, you're a badass and we love you!