Jeff & Laura Sandefer - Heroes of Education

Today's guests are people who are near and dear to Matt's heart. Jeff and Laura Sandefer, the founders and creators of Acton Academy, are the people who started it all. What started as something they wanted to build for their own children has grown into an alternative education program with locations across the world.  After being awarded the highly competitive Walter Wattles Fellowship at Lloyd’s of London, Laura worked in the aviation insurance industry in New York City.  Deciding to follow her calling into the world of education, Laura returned to Nashville and earned her Master of Education at Peabody College. This led her to her work at the Oklahoma Arts Institute, creating fine arts education programs for teachers and talented high school students. Laura married Jeff Sandefer and is the happy mother of Sam and Charlie and step-mother to Taite. It is the inspiration of these children that led Laura and Jeff to co-found Acton Academy. As an entrepreneur, Jeff founded his first company at age 16 and went on to found or co-found seven successful businesses. As a Socratic teacher at the University of Texas, Jeff’s students five times voted him the school’s Outstanding Teacher and Businessweek named him one of the top Entrepreneurship professors in America. Jeff went on to co-found the Acton School of Business, an MBA program perennially ranked by the Princeton Review among the best in the nation. In 2012 The Economist honored him as one of the top fifteen Business School professors in the world. Jeff is a graduate of the Harvard Business School, where he served for over twenty years on the school’s governing committees. He was a longtime director of the Philanthropy Roundtable and National Review magazine and one of the youngest members ever elected to the Texas Business Hall of Fame. Now, hear their take on the Essential 11 Questions. More places you can find Jeff & Laura: Instagram - @laurasandefer, @actonacademy Website - https://www.actonacademy.org/austin Book - Courage to Grow