Learning & Development · AI Enablement · Amsterdam

I build academies.One of them was mine.

Fifteen years designing programs, hiring and coaching the people who teach them, and running the business underneath. I founded a school and scaled it to 10,000+ students, and before that I built the entire digital course area of one of Latin America's best creative schools. I've never taught anything I wasn't doing — advertising, then content, now AI.

Juan Etchegaray in Amsterdam-Noord
Argentine. After a career I was proud of, I chose to start it again in Amsterdam.
Founder of Grow, 2017–2026 · 10,000+ students · 50+ courses
Currently Content Officer at FSSC, leading the company-wide Claude rollout
The pattern

Three times, the same move: work in the field, then build the school for it.

I have never taught a subject I was only reading about. Each time I was already doing the work professionally, saw that nobody was training anyone for it yet, and built the program — the curriculum, the faculty, the launch, the numbers. Three eras, three separate bodies of evidence, one repeatable method.

2010 — 2017
Advertising
In the fieldCopywriter and creative at DDB, DON, McCann and Ogilvy, through the years when digital stopped being a side channel.
What I builtAt a Buenos Aires creative school, nights and Saturdays: the country's first digital creativity course, then a four-subject annual program, plus workshops pairing students with NGOs and production companies. Six international campuses ran it, and I trained their faculty.
Case 03Someone else's school
2017 — 2026
Content & digital
In the fieldLearning digital marketing by running my own — campaigns, community, production, a thousand-plus ad creatives, and the numbers underneath all of it.
What I builtGrow: the school I founded by crossing digital marketing with creativity. 10,000+ students, 50+ courses, 150+ instructors, corporate programs for RE/MAX, HSBC and the Red Cross.
Case 02The school I built
2025 — now
AI
In the fieldUsing it daily on real work — translation, image production, automation, research — and following the field closely enough to know what's actually usable.
What I'm buildingTook an AI proposal through security review, executive board and budget at a global certification body. Now leading the rollout and writing the onboarding, team by team.
Case 01Making an organization learn AI

The subject keeps changing. The method hasn't changed once.

Fifteen years, two tracks

Two careers at once, on purpose — not a gap.

A CV read top to bottom makes this look inconsistent. It isn't. The two tracks ran at the same time for fifteen years — first a job in advertising with the teaching at night and on Saturdays, then Grow as my full-time company from 2018 to 2025, and now FSSC. The teaching was never a break from the practice. It was fed by it.

2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
Creativity & content
DDB
DON
McCann
Ogilvy
Ministry of Transport
Freelance & brand work
FSSC
In education
Brother · creative school
Grow · founder
Practicing the subject Teaching and building programs for it

The overlap is the whole argument. I was writing campaigns at Ogilvy while designing the first digital creativity course in the country. I was running Grow's own marketing while building its curriculum. Today I'm doing content work at FSSC while taking an AI program through its governance. Same shape, three times.

The work

Five places where the method
left something behind.

Three schools, a set of tools, and what the press made of it. Each one is a full case — what the problem was, what I built, and what I'd do differently.

Contact

Fifteen years, three subjects, one method.

I'm looking for the role where the enablement work is the job, not the thing I do on top of it — AI enablement, L&D, or an academy to build — in an English-first company.

EU work permit through 2030, no sponsorship required · currently Content Officer at FSSC.