Juanita León

Juanita León is the Founder and Director of La Silla Vacía, a pioneer digital news website focused on Colombian politics that has become a leading reference in the country’s media landscape. A Colombian journalist, writer, and public speaker, León has dedicated her career to political journalism and innovative digital media.

León obtained a law degree from the University of the Andes in Bogotá and a Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She began her career as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal Americas before returning to Colombia in 1998, where she worked for the newspaper El Tiempo and Semana magazine, serving as editor-in-chief of the weekly’s website.

In 2006, León was selected as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and upon her return, she helped launch the alternative online news magazine Flyp in 2008. The following year, with support from a grant from the Open Society Foundations and her family resources, she founded La Silla Vacía in 2009.

León has continued to expand her expertise through international academic engagement, serving as an Academic Visitor at St Antony’s College, Oxford, from 2018 to 2019. She is the author of several books, including “Country of Bullets: Chronicles of War in Colombia.” She is a member of the IFIT Brain Trust for the Colombian Transition.