Dr. Valeria Merino is a social entrepreneur dedicated to sustainable development, transparency, democracy, the rule of law, and social entrepreneurship. Dr. Merino was appointed Chair of the Fisheries Transparency Initiative International Board of Directors in January 2020 and was recently re-elected until December 2025. She founded and led the most prominent rule of law social organization in Ecuador for two decades.
She co-founded Transparency International, Participación Ciudadana Ecuador, and the Ecuadorian Environmental Law Center; and served on the International Board of Transparency International for six years. Also, Valeria worked at Ashoka, and The Skoll Foundation, two of the leading global organizations focused on entrepreneurship and social innovation, based in Washington, D.C., and Palo Alto, California.
There, she supported hundreds of the world’s best social organizations and their leaders in their efforts to address complex social problems by changing systems. In addition, she was a member and Vice-Chair of the Council of the United Nations University based in Tokyo, Japan. Valeria Merino is a lawyer by training. She has a doctorate in jurisprudence from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador and a Master of Laws (LL.M) from the University of Pennsylvania.