Management Team
Andres Moreno
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Andres lived in the U.S. and 7 other countries on 3 continents while growing up, and learned to speak 4 languages. He began his entrepreneurial career in Venezuela, co-founding a company that provided Fortune 500 companies such as Procter and Gamble, Sun Microsystems, and Cargill with one-on-one English language instruction for their Latin American executives. After this company was unable to scale to meet demand, Andres spent the next four years developing innovative technologies and techniques that can scale online language training. Such proprietary technologies and content are at the core of Open English.
Thomas "Tigre" Wenrich
Chief Financial Officer / Chief Operating Officer
Tigre is a multi-cultural executive with international experience in finance, marketing, and operations. After a successful career as partner with The Boston Consulting Group in the U.S., Spain and Mexico, he retired to Miami, Florida where he subsequently participated in a roll-up in the retail money service business (remittances, check cashing, payday advance). After selling his stores in early 2009, Tigre joined Open English in August. Born in the Dominican Republic, Tigre holds a B.A. from Stanford University.
Wilmer Sarmiento
Founder & Vice President of Technology
Wilmer first teamed with Andres Moreno, while the two were engineering students at the Universidad Simon Bolivar (USB) in Caracas, Venezuela. Wilmer became the chief architect for the online learning platform, heading up infrastructure research and framework validation, his specialty. Today, he oversees the entire corporate technology team with expertise in database management, rich interactive applications, Java, HTML, and system administration.
Wilmer has a degree in Computer Engineering from USB, having achieved the highest GPA in the history of the department. Without a day of traditional classroom training, Wilmer has also taught himself English, largely through the development of the Online School of Open English.
Nicolette Moreno
Vice President of Product and Live Instruction
Nicolette joined Open English in September 2006 to oversee content development for the creation of the Online School. She worked with a team of 12 educators and 11 programmers, as well as coordinating the Company's co-production of English Highway with the Cisneros Group of Companies. She is currently in charge of new product development initiatives as well as the certification and coordination of English instructors working remotely from all over the world.
Prior to joining Open English, Nicolette was a member of the Micro-Enterprise Development group at World Vision International, the largest Christian nonprofit in the world.
She also worked as an Equity Trader for Doheny Asset Management ($500M under management). She graduated cum laude from Pepperdine University.
James Nation
Vice President, Student Relationship Management
Upon joining Open English in February 2009, James assumed responsibility for the Company's first call center in Caracas, Venezuela. He led the implementation of the saleforce.com CRM platform and the outsourcing and growth of the company's call center operation. James is currently designing the international expansion plan for future Open English service centers.
Prior to Open English, James spent 13 years at Citi Group, most recently overseeing a trilingual contact center in Tampa, FL (Spanish, Portuguese and English) for 83,000 high-profile international clients.
He was born in Gainesville, Florida, but grew up in Venezuela. He holds a BS in Business Administration from Universidad Jose Maria Vargas and an MBA from the University of Phoenix.
Kenny Vivas
Head of Technical Support department
Kenny was a founding member of the development team that created Open English and has played a key role in the design of the web page. He is currently in charge of all customer Tech Support. Kenny has an Engineering degree from the Universidad Simón Bolívar.
Ciro Durán
Senior Developer, RIA
Ciro was a founding member of the development team that created Open English, focusing on the design and programming of the learning platform, a Rich Interaction Application developed in Adobe Flash. Ciro has a degree in Computer Engineering from Universidad Simón Bolívar and in his spare time teaches a university course on videogame design and production.