Rodrigo Teles

Rodrigo has a degree in Business Administration from Fundação Getulio Vargas, with extension at Wirtschaftsuniversität in Vienna, Austria. He is also a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.

Rodrigo is the Managing Director of Fundação Estudar, a leading educational nonprofit organization in Brazil focused on potentializing young talents. 

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Prior to that, Rodrigo was Managing Director of Endeavor Brazil. Hailed by Thomas Friedman as 'the best anti-poverty program of all,' Endeavor is a nonprofit that pioneered the field of 'High-Impact Entrepreneurship.' Rodrigo began his career at Endeavor in 2003, coordinating a high-tech business development program in partnership with FAPESP, the biggest research foundation in Brazil, providing support to 100 high-tech entrepreneurs that collectively raised several million dollars in seed-stage capital. By 2005, he was managing a portfolio of 12 high-growth companies with combined annual revenues of near $500M. In 2007, he created Entrepreneurship Week Brazil, mobilizing more than 1.5 million participants in the country and connecting the Brazilian entrepreneurial ecosystem for the first time in history. 

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Rodrigo left Endeavor in 2008 to pursue an opportunity to participate in a turnaround of Mãe Terra, a high-growth company and leader in the healthy foods segment in Brazil. In less than one year, he developed a new branding strategy and created more than 20 new products that were launched successfully in the market. After making strides in this role, he was invited by the board of directors of Endeavor to rejoin the organization in 2009. 

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As Managing Director of Endeavor, Rodrigo created new business units such as Education, Public Policies and Digital Outreach, expanded to new regions in Brazil, and started shifting Endeavor from a traditional NGO to a social business with recurrent revenues. In less than 4 years, Endeavor had a 4x increase in annual revenues and cash reserves, formalizing the creation of its endowment fund. 

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Earlier, Rodrigo created an educational program distributed to 40 top universities in Brazil, impacting more than 100 entrepreneurship professors and 2,500 students. Putting together a strong network of professors and intellectuals, Rodrigo was able to include Brazil in the OECD Entrepreneurship Indicators Program, building the first report on high-impact entrepreneurship in Brazil with IBGE, the national statistics office.

Rodrigo served his fellowship at Endeavor - Brazil as a member of Class 14. His mentor was Brian Trelstad (Class 12) of Acumen Fund in New York.