Ari de Sá Neto

EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2026 finalist, Brazil
CEO and Founder, Arco Educação

Ari de Sá Neto is scaling digital-first solutions to support millions of Brazilian students.

Ari de Sá Neto has dedicated his career to expanding access to high-quality education across Brazil. His path builds on a family legacy that began in 1944, when his grandfather founded a school that his father later transformed into a national benchmark. This experience shaped Ari’s purpose to empower students and educators through excellence and innovation.

Motivated by this foundation, Ari created Arco Educação to bring consistent, evidence-based learning tools to schools nationwide. What started as a mission to scale quality pedagogy has grown into one of Brazil’s most influential education platforms. Under his leadership, Arco became the first Latin American education company to list on Nasdaq, and today its integrated solutions reach more than 4 million students, 141,000 teachers and 12,000 schools.

Ari is now steering Arco into its next phase: a unified digital operating system for schools in Latin America. After taking the company private in 2023, he announced a US$220 million investment to build Latin America’s first operating system for schools that brings together content, data and relationships — laying the groundwork for personalized learning powered by artificial intelligence. His goal is to help teachers support each student’s needs, including those with learning gaps or disabilities.

Ari also has founded the Arco Institute, which provides free learning content and partnerships for public schools. Its programs reach more than 500,000 vulnerable students, extending his commitment to reducing structural inequalities and expanding opportunity through education.