About Schola Sophia
Built by people who ran the institutions we now serve
Schola Sophia is an AI readiness academy founded by social entrepreneurs. We help mission-driven organizations redefine the role of their people in the age of AI, bringing philosophy, ethics, process improvement, simulation and systems thinking to the work they already do. The institutions that serve people depend on their people more than their software.
Our name
A school for wisdom
Schola is Latin for school, from the Greek scholē: time set aside for learning. Sophia is Greek for wisdom. The AI era needs both: room to practice and learn, and the judgment to use what we learn well.
Our mission
To help people and institutions remain agentic, meaningful and capable amid AI-driven disruption, by pairing timeless disciplines of judgment and purpose with modern disciplines of process and performance.
AI-native, in plain terms
We run on the methods we teach
Being AI-native simply means AI is part of how we do our own work every day, the way email and spreadsheets are for everyone else. We use it to research, draft, build simulations and give learners feedback. People check the output, make the decisions and own the results. So when we teach your team, we teach from daily practice, not from a slide deck.
Our leadership
Three leaders, three lanes
Edwine Michel
Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Strategy & Operations · Denver
Edwine has spent twenty years making organizations run better, from defense engineering and financial services to senior operating roles in education philanthropy and service in public school governance. He built Lean Six Sigma programs inside two large school districts and certified their staff, then rebuilt his own firm around AI to learn firsthand what actually changes.
MBA, Boston University; M.Ed., Yale; B.A., B.S., and M.S., University of Rochester; Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. He leads strategy, program design, and the operating system behind every engagement.
Joseph Terry, Ph.D.
Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Research & Insights · New York
Joseph is a philosopher and professor who spent years teaching people to think clearly, well before AI made that the most valuable skill in the room. He holds a doctorate in philosophical theology from the University of Nottingham, is a certified philosophical counselor, started out in astrophysics, and teaches at CUNY, the largest urban university in the country.
He leads research and insights: the judgment curriculum, the essays and the podcast, and the frameworks that make our programs something other than a tools workshop.
Idly Etienne
President and Managing Director · Atlanta
Idly has led people in the two places where culture is hardest to change: a public high school and a sales floor. As a Dean of Students and later Director of Student Accountability, Mentorship, and Culture in Atlanta public education, he built the accountability and mentorship systems a school runs on. Before that he founded a residential real estate brokerage and grew it to more than thirty agents.
Certificate, Emory University, Goizueta Business School; B.B.A., Alcorn State University. He leads growth, institutional partnerships, and program delivery.
Where we have worked
Experience behind the method
- One of the largest school districts in Florida
- A global aerospace and defense manufacturer
- A global pharmaceutical company
- A national financial services firm
- A national education fund investing in more than 200 school networks
Denver · Atlanta · New York
Work with us
Start with a 20-minute call about the process that costs your team the most time.