Maria Cecilia focuses on intellectual property matters and co-heads the intellectual property and regulatory departments. Ms. Cecilia works across several different industries, especially aviation, distribution and services, energy and natural resources, food and beverage, infrastructure and construction, insurance, pharma, and retail.

Ms. Cecilia advises numerous leading international companies as to how to protect and enforce their IP in Ecuador and Latin America. In addition, she is widely recognized for her exceptional results combatting piracy and counterfeiting.

In the regulatory area, Ms. Cecilia oversees procedures for obtaining permits and authorizations, due diligence, defending clients in administrative and judicial processes, management of complex matters and crisis management. She also handles issues of foreign trade and quality standards or any other procedures required for the sale and exploitation of products and services.

She actively participates in forums and conferences on intellectual property issues. She is the first Ecuadorian both to sit on INTA’s Board of Directors and to form part of the Programming Committee of the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI).

Ms. Cecilia has been recognized in legal directories such as Chambers and Partners Global and Latin America, IP Stars, Latin Lawyer, LACCA, Legal 500, Who’s Who Legal and WTR 1000. Furthermore, Maria Cecilia received the Chambers Women in Law Award for Ecuador in 2018, and is the only Ecuadorian to have been recognized among the 250 most influential women in IP as selected by IP Stars.

She is an international IP mediator and arbitrator, and has experience in the public sector, from her time sitting as a judge of the Administrative Litigation Court. She also acted as chair for the first INTA LATAM Conference in Cartagena in 2017, as well as international programming leader for INTA Boston 2019.