Maria Teresa Ronderos is the Director of the Program on Independent Journalism at the Open Society Foundations in London. The program aims to support a free and safe environment for journalism to flourish, while seeking to strengthen investigative reporting, innovative and quality information collected under difficult conditions, and knowledge sharing in the field.

Maria Teresa Ronderos took up her position at the PIJ in August 2015, leaving behind Semana, Colombia’s leading news magazine, where she served in a range of senior editorial roles. Together with the Ideas for Peace Foundation, she created and was editor in chief at VerdadAbierta.com, a website that has covered armed conflict in Colombia since 2008. In 2014, Maria Teresa released her highly acclaimed book, 'Guerras Recicladas', a history of the paramilitary forces in Colombia.

Maria Teresa is a member of the directive council of the García Márquez Iberoamerican Foundation for New Journalism and has been a board member of the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Flip, Colombia’s Foundation for Freedom of the Press, where, as chair she worked to protect the lives of journalists in danger.

An experienced teacher, Maria Teresa has trained professional journalists from across Latin America and led workshops, online courses, and seminars on investigative journalism, politics, and social and economic issues. On account of her book “Guerras Recicladas” in 2014, Ronderos won the highest national award, Simon Bolivar National Award, “Best Journalist of the Year”. Among other awards, Ronderos has also received the King of Spain Iberoamerican Award in Madrid and the Maria Moors Cabot Award from Columbia University in New York.