Community

Core Team

Advisors

Community

Core Team

Luis E. García de Brigard

Managing Partner and founder

Luis has started, managed, and scaled educational companies from the ground up to multimillion dollar businesses. His experience in the industry includes K-12, educational travel, languages, educational technologies, and after-school education. Luis has led a variety of growth strategies ranging from greenfield projects to mergers and acquisitions of well- established companies. He previously served as Chief Executive Officer for the Americas at Inspired Education. He has significant government experience, having served as Deputy Minister of Education of Colombia, where he managed one of the nation’s largest budgets and was responsible for the schooling of nearly 10 million students. Luis has served as director, trustee and member in numerous boards of educational organizations including Harvard University’s Laspau, the Global Education Innovation Initiative, Varkey Foundation’s Atlantis Group, and SOS Children’s Villages.

Luis earned his Law degree from Universidad Javeriana, received a Masters in Education from Harvard University and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Martin Ferraro

Partner

Before joining Appian, Martin served as CEO of HCIG, the investment arm of a prominent industrial conglomerate with more than 100 years of operations in the Americas. During his
tenure at HCIG, he designed and implemented a strategy to actively invest in the higher education and workforce development sectors, thus becoming one of the most active players in the regional ecosystem. Martin has led several transactions across the globe which range from M&A transactions and new business development, to investing in minority stakes in startups and EdTech-focused Private Funds. Previously, Martin served multiple leadership roles in Cementos Pacasmayo, the second largest cement company in Peru and listed in NYSE. Martin serves as Board Member in Voxel School, Mountain Lodge of Peru and Instituto Peruano de Fomento Educativo.

Martin earned his Business and Finance degree from Universidad de Ciencias Aplicadas and
received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Laura Cepeda

Partner

Laura’s experience spans the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and China, in multiple industries with a focus on Education across the value chain. Most recently, she led Learning and Development for Boston Consulting Group in the Middle East, where she reinvented and professionalized the learning journey for all teams working in the region. She was also COO for the Americas of Inspired Education, the 2nd largest platform of K-12 international premium schools in the world. As a prior Consultant at Boston Consulting Group, she led growth strategy and implementation initiatives across industries and medium-to-Fortune 500 companies. Laura also has turnaround, mergers and acquisitions and financial experience from her time working for the CEO of Santander US and Santander China.

Laura has a major in Political Science with a Minor in Mandarin Chinese from Davidson College, a top-10 liberal arts college in the U.S., and completed advanced coursework in Chinese Politics
and Economics at Peking University and Fudan University.

Felipe Arango Piñeros

Principal

Felipe is passionate about the future of learning. He has experience in entrepreneurship, investing, strategy and designing and executing public policy in education and other sectors. Felipe worked in McKinsey & Company serving multiple clients in Latin America in the energy, consumer, financial and social and public sectors. Afterward, Felipe was appointed advisor to the Colombian Deputy Minister of Housing. Additionally, Felipe has extensive experience in research, having worked at the Harvard Kennedy School, the World Bank, CAF (Latin American Development Bank), Fedesarollo (leading think tank in Latin America) and CEDE (Economic Research Center).

Felipe earned a BA and MA in Economics from Los Andes University and earned an MPA/ID from the Harvard Kennedy School.