Our Entrepreneurs

Company Snapshot

Families and corporations are seeing the advent of a new way to achieve work-life balance. ADVENIO corporate daycare centers help employers attract and retain talent by providing Mexico’s working parents with a high-quality, convenient daycare option for children as young as 43 days. ADVENIO is the first service in Mexico to provide on-site childcare for employees at employer-subsidized rates. Founders René Lankenau and Luis Garza have tapped into a billion dollar market opportunity: with at least 1.5 million Mexican children being cared for by relatives and nannies, and a largely improvised daycare sector, families are looking for more formal educational options. With seven centers and a base of well-known clients such as HSBC and Mars, ADVENIO has carved out a strong position as Monterrey’s leading daycare brand.

Luis and René, both natives of Monterrey, are longtime family friends. Both possess strong business backgrounds. After graduating from Stanford with a degree in management science and engineering in 2006, Luis went to work for BCG Mexico for two years and later completed his MBA at Harvard in 2010. René has an executive MBA from IPADE and worked for two years at Grupo Reforma, a major newspaper group. The entrepreneurs’ business experience is supplemented by René‘s knowledge of educational issues. In 2002, after completing a politics degree in Spain, René decided that rather than go into public service, as he had originally planned, he would apply some of his thesis on education and development to the real world. To do this, he started Altius, a non-profit that today runs 34 schools in Latin America serving 20,000 children.

ADVENIO helps corporations attract and retain the best employees by providing parents a convenient, structured alternative to the childcare provided by relatives or expensive nannies. ADVENIO’s most popular service is full-time daycare, which includes up to 10 hours of care a day from Monday through Friday. For parents who need more flexibility in terms of schedule and location, or sporadic backup care, ADVENIO offers hourly rates sold on prepaid “ADVENIO Cards.” Other services include childcare at corporate events and after-school care. Centers offer individually paced educational modules, company-aligned schedules, world-class safety installations, and MiADVENIO, an online system with live-streaming videos and updates on each child’s activities. With educator-to-child ratios of 1:3 for infants, 1:5 for ages one to two, and 1:7 for older children, parents can rest assured that their children are looked after.