Organisations seeking to strengthen their leadership pipeline often discover that capable women stall before reaching the most senior roles. This case study explores how Laureate Education partnered with Dattner Group to build internal capability and expand women’s leadership across its institutions in Mexico and Peru through the Compass Women’s Program.
About Laureate Education
Laureate Education is a leading, primarily Latin American-focused network of higher education institutions, employing nearly 30,000 people and serving almost 500,000 students across Mexico and Peru. As a certified B Corp and Public Benefit Corporation, it provides accessible, high-quality, career-focused undergraduate and graduate programs through campus-based and online, with a strong focus on employability.
Laureate Education (5 across Mexico and Peru, some 70 campuses between them) believe deeply in the transformative power of education. 41% of their students are first generation college students and 9 out of 10 graduates are employed within 12 months of graduation.
The Challenge
Across both Mexico and Peru many people still hold implicit beliefs that men are more suited to leadership, authority and decision making. According to UNDP’s Gender Social Norms Index, close to three quarters of people in Mexico hold at least one gender‑biased belief across key domains such as physical integrity, politics, the economy and education.
In Peru, while women’s representation in parliament and managerial roles has increased, significant conservative attitudes and structural barriers persist, indicating support for more women in leadership but continued hesitation around women occupying the highest decision‑making positions.
Laureate Education sought to strengthen the pipeline of women leaders across its institutions in Latin America. While there was strong commitment to equity and leadership development, senior representation of women remained limited at the time Dattner Group were commissioned to help.
The Context
When the work began, women were significantly under-represented in senior leadership forums. At Laureate’s annual Top 100 leadership conference in Cancun, only 8 of the 100 participants were women, and all of the most senior roles were held by men.
Laureate partnered with the Dattner Group to introduce and embed the Compass Women’s Program, a leadership development initiative designed to strengthen women’s leadership capability while influencing the broader leadership culture of the organisation.
The Approach
From the outset, the partnership was designed as a collaborative capability-building process, not a traditional consulting engagement.
The work unfolded across several phases:
1. Discovery and Alignment
Dattner Group and Laureate leaders aligned on the purpose, success measures, and rollout approach for Compass across the region. Consultation sessions explored:
- organisational culture
- leadership priorities
- participant profiles
- operational constraints
This ensured the program was adapted to the specific leadership context of Laureate Education.
2. Program Tailoring and Design
Compass was configured to suit the regional context, including:
- cohort structure
- facilitation model
- leadership practices and language
- operational processes for delivery
- technical accreditation in requisite diagnostics
The aim was to embed a program that was owned by Laureate rather than externally delivered.
3. Workshops and Leadership Development
Dattner Group delivered and facilitated workshops with Laureate leaders, building a shared language around leadership, purpose and impact for women across the organisation. This involved an intensive 6 months with the executive leadership team of Laureate Inc, the executive of Mexico and the CEO of Peru.
4. Building Internal Capability
A central focus of the work was transferring capability to Laureate’s internal leaders.
This included:
- supporting leaders in facilitation and delivery
- training internal facilitators and coaches (selecting experienced and respected leaders to do this)
- developing facilitator guides and program materials
- building operational processes for program management
5. Pilot and Iteration
Pilot cohorts were run across Mexico and Peru with executive participation from Laureate Inc in the programs. Dattner Group provided close support delivering the entirety of the first cohort’s program, co-delivering the second and monitoring and coaching the trained facililtators for delivery of the third.
Feedback from these pilots informed refinement of:
- facilitation approaches
- materials
- program cadence
- operating model
- Facilitator and coaching selection
6. Embedding and Handover
Compass was integrated into Laureate’s broader initiatives for women, including governance, communications and leadership engagement.
A structured handover transferred full program ownership to Laureate, supported by documentation and knowledge transfer sessions.
Senior Leadership Engagement = Program credibility
The initiative was championed by seven senior women leaders — known internally as OC7 (Original Compass 7) — who became powerful sponsors for the work. Their leadership gave the program credibility while grounding it in the lived experience of women across the organisation already in leadership roles. An example of this is Tairi Rullier, Director of Academic Operations in UPN – a key internal Compass champion and one of the first women at Laureate to undertake Compass.
At the same time, the executive team — including CEO Eilif Serck-Hanssen — participated in a concurrent leadership development process. This enabled senior leaders to:
- understand the scale of development occurring for women in the program
- adopt a shared leadership language
- act as visible mentors and sponsors.
This parallel development ensured the work influenced the whole leadership system, not only the women participating.
The Impact and Legacy
Compass is designed to act as a catalyst for broader organisational change, rather than a standalone program.
Key outcomes include:
- Over 120 senior women leaders have participated in Compass across the region.
- Laureate now runs the program entirely internally, with trained facilitators and program leaders.
Women’s representation at senior leadership forums has increased significantly.
While men still hold the majority of C-suite and Vice President roles, Laureate has publicly committed to closing this gap and continues to invest in initiatives such as Compass to strengthen the pipeline of future women executives.
Laureate’s long-standing commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Quality Education (SDG 4), Gender Equality (SDG 5), Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8) and Partnerships for the Goals (SDG 17), provided the wider purpose frame for this work and made Compass a natural fit.
As a certified B Corp operating one of the largest private university networks in Mexico and Peru, Laureate has explicitly linked its impact strategy to expanding access to quality tertiary education for first‑generation students and advancing social mobility, while strengthening the capability and wellbeing of its own people. The Compass Women’s Program, focused on the inner capacities leaders need for long‑term, systemic change – such as self‑awareness, courage, purpose, and relational intelligence – thereby directly supporting Laureate’s progress on SDG 5 by increasing women’s representation in senior leadership, mentoring and sponsorship.
By building internal capability to run Compass and embedding it into broader governance, people, impact and ESG initiatives, Laureate has strengthened its own leadership pipeline while deepening its contribution to SDG 4 and SDG 8: preparing more women leaders to shape inclusive, high‑quality education and decent work opportunities for hundreds of thousands of students across Mexico and Peru.
