When Sergio Monsalve, ’93, was 12 years old, his family moved from Mexico City to San Diego—a scary transition for an adolescent who couldn’t speak the same language as his new classmates. “I had to take remedial English while going through all of the socialization of starting a new school at that age,” he recalls. “It was tough, a tumultuous time.”

But he prevailed, going on to earn a bachelor’s degree in management science and engineering at Stanford and an MBA from Harvard before launching an online commerce startup at age 28. Now a venture capital investor with a focus on edtech and “future of work” companies, Monsalve is leading the new Entrepreneur-in-Residence program at GSE, where he counsels students and faculty on innovative projects in education and helps connect them with leaders outside academia.

The experience of leaving his home country as a child helped him develop a trait he considers critical for a successful entrepreneur: a sense of adventure. “You can’t be set in your ways,” he says. “You have to do things that make you uncomfortable.”