Who, What, Why: Lorea Peterson Redondo bridges business and education

With verve and vision, Lorea Peterson Redondo talks about her courses in business and education like any soon-to-be-graduate would: eager for what’s next.

Peterson is a dual-degree graduate student in the Wharton School and the Graduate School of Education who began her program in 2023 and will graduate in May. Her family, based in Mexico City, carries a deep legacy in education. In 1965, her American grandfather and Mexican grandmother founded what is now the oldest English-speaking Montessori school in Mexico. Today, her father leads a collection of schools.

But Peterson initially chose to break from that tradition. She studied cognitive science and business as an undergraduate at the University of California, San Diego. After graduating, she worked at IBM and later joined a tech startup. Yet it wasn’t long before she felt a deep pull to return and continue her family’s work in education.

“Living in the States and working in tech was incredibly formative,” Peterson recalls. “I thought, ‘This is a great challenge—I’m learning so much.’ But I needed that wake-up call to realize that education is my true passion. The sense of purpose you feel when you wake up knowing your work is shaping lives—there’s nothing like it.”

Over the next five years, she returned home to build the schools’ institutional advancement department. Feeling a need for further education in leadership, however, she opted to enroll in Penn’s dual-degree program that weaves business and education.

“This dual degree was perfect,” she says. “Penn does a remarkable job of bridging those two fields.”

At Penn, Peterson set out with four clear goals: to find mentorship, become a stronger leader, cross disciplines, and learn how to apply business strategy to educational transformation.

She found that and more. She’s been inspired by countless case studies and faculty, she says, including Michael Golden, founder and leader of Catalyst @ Penn GSE, and Jonathan Zimmerman, whose class had her enthralled.

“Lorea brought a wealth of experience, insight, and enthusiasm to our class on the history of school reform in the United States,” says Zimmerman, the Judy and Howard Berkowitz Professor in Education. “She also taught me about Mexico—where she worked for a set of private schools—and about the fiscal dimensions of education. I know exactly how lucky I am to have students like her.”

Through her experience at both Penn GSE and Wharton, she says one of the most rewarding parts has been learning from her peers.

“I’ve learned just as much from my classmates as I have from my professors. Every time I walk into a classroom, I’m struck by the insight, intensity, and generosity of the people around me. Someone will share a story or offer a perspective that completely shifts how I understand a reading or concept. I think to myself, ‘Wow—I hadn’t thought of it that way.’ That constant exchange of ideas, that community of minds challenging and uplifting each other, has been one of the most transformative aspects of these two years. I came for the education—but I’m leaving most grateful for the people.”

“I want to continue deepening my understanding of the education space—especially how technology is reshaping it,” Peterson Redondo explains. “That’s what draws me to edtech. I aspire to lead meaningful change in this field, but I constantly ask myself: how do I root that change in the context of Mexico? How do we ensure we’re not left behind? How can we reimagine traditional K–12 education and elevate it to meet the needs of the future? Being in this incredibly privileged position, pursuing two degrees, I feel a deep responsibility to turn this knowledge into action. My goal is to return home equipped to be a thoughtful, effective agent of change.”

She’s currently looking for a role in edtech in the U.S. that can help her apply what she’s learned at Penn and continue to expand her skillset. Her hope is that she can eventually share her knowledge to improve the lives of students and educators in not just Mexico, but across Latin America—“a domino effect, hopefully,” she says.