Mónica Almeida is Quito's bureau chief of El Universo newspaper. For the last 20 years she has managed the main regional office creating a talented team of journalists that is responsible for all the content generated from the capital of Ecuador. She has also worked as a reporter and editor for Agence France Presse in Paris. A fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University in 2009, she specialized in investigative journalism and regularly takes part in the Latin American Conference of Investigative Journalism organized by IPYS. She was part of the global team of reporters working on the Panama Papers with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) that won the Pulitzer Price 2017 for Explanatory Reporting. She has become a defender of investigative journalism and high journalism standards in a time press freedom has been under attack in Ecuador.