Board of Directors

Oto Brasil de Sá Cavalcante is the Chairman of our board of directors, a position he has held since February 2018. Mr. Brasil de Sá Cavalcante has over 50 years’ experience in the education industry. In 2001, he founded Colégio Ari de Sá in Fortaleza, and has been the chairman of its board of directors since 2001. In 2013, he founded Faculdade Ari de Sá in Fortaleza, and has been its chief executive officer since 2013. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Universidade Federal do Ceará in Fortaleza.

Chairman of the Board

Ari de Sá Cavalcante Neto is a member of our board of directors and our Chief Executive Officer, positions he has held since February 2018. He has been a member of the advisory committee at Colégio Ari de Sá since 2007. Mr. de Sá Cavalcante Neto was an associate at Ernst & Young from 1998 to 2000. He was the chief operating officer of Colégio Ari de Sá from 2001 to 2005, and was an associate at McKinsey & Company in 2006. He holds an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Paula Soares de Sá Cavalcante is a member of our board of directors since May 2021. Ms. Cavalcante holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Fortaleza and a postgraduate degree in Finance from Insper. She worked at Deloitte in the auditing and mergers and acquisitions areas for 4 years.

Martin Escobari has been with General Atlantic since 2012 and is a member of its Executive Committee, is the Chair of its Investment Committee, and is the head of its Latin America business. Mr. Escobari serves on the board of directors of Empreendimentos Pague Menos SA, Invekra, S.A.P.I. de C.V. (d/b/a Laboratorios Sanfer, S.A. de C.V.), Grupo Axo, S.A.P.I. de C.V. and XP Investimentos, and has previously served on the boards of Ourofino Saude Animal Participações S.A., Sura Asset Management, Smiles S.A. Aceco TI Participaҫões S.A., Grupo Linx and Decolar.com, Inc. Mr. Escobari co-founded submarino.com and was its chief financial officer from 1999 to 2007. He was an associate at the Boston Consulting Group (New York) from 1994 to 1996, an investment officer at the private equity firm GP Investimentos from 1998 to 1999, and a managing director at Advent International from 2007 to 2011. Mr. Escobari holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard College (Harvard University) and an MBA (George F. Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School. He serves on the board of Primeira Chance, a scholarship program for gifted children in Brazil and is active with Endeavor Brazil, where he mentors young entrepreneurs. Mr. Escobari is also a member of the Brazil office of Harvard’s Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

Edward Ruiz is an American national with over 48 years of experience in public and private accounting. He has been a Certified Public Accountant in the United States since 1972. Edward retired from Deloitte in 2012, where he was an audit partner and member of Deloitte’s IFRS Specialist Group in Brazil. As Head of the Capital Markets group in Brazil, Edward advised companies on financial and regulatory reporting matters related to initial public offerings and secondary offerings in Brazil, the United States and European Capital Markets. Prior to Deloitte, he held executive positions in internal audit at JP Morgan and PepsiCo Inc. in the United States. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Pace University, New York City and has taken advanced courses related to an Executive MBA at FIA in Sao Paulo and governance courses at the Harvard Business School. Since his retirement, Edward has gained extensive board-level experience as a member and Audit Committee chair of several publicly traded companies in Brazil. Edward is currently a Board member and Audit Committee chair at Nexa Resources, a mining company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange and with mining and smelting operations in Brazil and Peru.

Chair of the Audit Committee

Mr. Stelleo Tolda is a member of our board of directors, a position he has held since August 2020. He is Chief Operating Officer of MercadoLibre Inc. since April 1, 2009. Prior to this appointment, he served as a senior vice president and as country manager of Brazil since 1999. In that role, he guided MercadoLibre to its current position as the leading e-commerce marketplace in Brazil. Before joining MercadoLibre, Mr. Tolda worked at Lehman Brothers Inc. in the United States in 1999, and at Banco Pactual and Banco Icatu in Brazil, from 1996 to 1997 and 1994 to 1996, respectively. He holds a master’s in business administration from Stanford University, and a master’s degree and bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, also from Stanford.

Ms. Schmitzberger is a member of our board of directors, a position she has held since February 2021. She was vice-president at Alpargatas, owner of the Havaianas brand of sandals, for nearly 14 years, being responsible for the internationalization of the business, the expansion of the brand to new product categories and the establishment of retail operations. Prior to that, Ms. Schmitzberger has worked for eight years at Citibank, holding the positions of Vice-President of Marketing and Products, Vice-President of Marketing and Head of Citibank Credit Cards Brazil. Ms. Schmitzberger also worked for 11 years at P&G and 2 years for Johnson & Johnson. Ms. Schmitzberger is currently an independent board member at Natura &Co and Lojas Marisa. Carla holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University.

Member of the Audit Committee

Ms. Amary is a member of our board of directors, a position she has held since February 2021. She is a partner focused on emerging markets at Amadeus Capital, a global technology investor. Before that, she was part of the team responsible for launching Actis, a global emerging markets investment fund, in São Paulo, leading investments in the consumer, retail, healthcare and education sectors in Latin America. She was responsible for the investments and held board member positions in CNA, an English Language Training company in Brazil, and Cruzeiro do Sul, an in-class and distance learning post-secondary education provider in Brazil. Prior to that, Ms. Amary worked in M&A at JP Morgan and Johnson & Johnson. Beatriz holds a degree from Fundação Getúlio Vargas in Brazil and an MBA at Harvard Business School.

Member of the Audit Committee