Alvaro Rodriguez-Arregui

Alvaro Rodriguez is a Senior Lecturer in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School. As member of the HBS faculty he teaches the first year MBA required course The Entrepreneurial Manager (TEM).

As Co-Founder and Managing Partner of IGNIA Alvaro has been working with entrepreneurs for 15 years as the first venture capital fund in Mexico. IGNIA is a cross-border early-stage venture capital firm based in the US and Mexico investing in tech entrepreneurs from around the world who are solving pain points faced by the emerging middle class in Latin America. Alvaro led investments in Rapyd, Tiendanube, Abra, Arcus, Credijusto, Lentesplus, ProducePay, UnDosTres and Sr. Pago.

His work at IGNIA has been recognized locally and globally when in 2011 he received the PODER-ABC Business Award, given by The Americas Business Council. In 2012 Forbes magazine named Alvaro as one of the Top 30 Social Entrepreneurs of the world and YPO awarded him with the SEN Sustainability Award on Economic Justice/Community Impact. Also, in 2014 the President of Mexico presented him with the National Entrepreneurship Award.

Álvaro has been a global leader in financial inclusion having been Chairman of the Board of ACCION International, a 60-year-old Boston based non-for-profit that promotes access to financial services to the poor in 35 countries and where he led ACCION’s efforts to be the first foreign entity ever to receive a microfinance license to operate in China. He was also Chairman of the Board of Compartamos, the largest microfinance institution in the Americas serving 3.3 million women. His work in financial inclusion was recognized by the World Economic Forum when in 2005 he was named Young Global Leader.

For ten years Alvaro served in the C-Suite of NYSE publicly listed companies as CEO or CFO in Elektra, Farmacias Benavides and Vitro.

He participates in the following: Board Member of Harvard University’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (Advisory Board); Harvard Business School Latin America Advisory Board; the Social Progress Imperative (founding board member); ITAM Epic Entrepreneurship Center (Advisory Board); Oxford University Saïd Business School Global Council and Duke University CASE Initiative on Impact Investing (CASE i3 – Advisory Board).

His philanthropic work today is focused on the Social Progress Index (SPI), a Washington and London based NGO which he cofounded in 2009. Today SPI helps measure the social progress of the 50 US states and the 500 largest cities in the United States. Also ranks the social progress of 180 countries and works with multiple national governments such as the government of India and the European Commission and local officials such as the Mayor of San Jose, California to improve the social progress of their countries and cities.

In 2019 Alvaro received the Alumni Achievement Award from Harvard Business School; the highest honor the School bestows.

In 2014 Alvaro received the Distinguished Alumni Award from his college Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and in 2015 he received the same award from his high school, Berkshire School, from Sheffield, Massachusetts.

He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM).

He is an active rower and during his younger years he was medalist at the US-Elite Nationals and a Pan-American Games. He was also 8th place at the World University Games in 1990.

Alvaro is married to Marcela Cortina (HGSD ’96) and they are proud parents of twin boys who are currently in college in the US and are recruited soccer players by Division I universities.