A long-term perspective on philanthropic capital and the role of education in shaping the institutions that will define the next century.
Francesco Reza Safavi is the Chairman of Asia Coatings Enterprises Pte. Ltd. and the Mowilex group of companies. Under his watch, Mowilex has become the first and only manufacturing company in Indonesia to be certified scope 1-3 carbon neutral in 2018, the first for any major coatings manufacturer globally. Prior to this, he was the President and CEO of Pan American Agriculture in the United States and and Mexico.
Francesco Reza Safavi’s career has unfolded at the intersection of philanthropy and education – in environments where capital is committed not for short-term return, but for the long-term shaping of the institutions, programmes and individuals that will define the decades ahead. His perspective is the product of a tradition that understands education as one of the most consequential of all philanthropic acts.
The Safavi philanthropic platform has long supported initiatives at the highest level of educational excellence, with particular attention to programmes that combine intellectual rigour with the reach to make that rigour available beyond a privileged few. That balance — between standard and accessibility — is part of what attracted his commitment to the founding of Novi Education.
For Novi, his presence among the founders carries a meaning that goes beyond strategic advice. It is the recognition that the model the company operates – building educational programmes around the institutions whose authority defines their fields – is the natural translation, into the language of education, of a longer philanthropic tradition that understands what makes a contribution durable.
As Founder and Advisor to the Board, Reza Safavi contributes to Novi in the dimensions where his perspective is most consequential.
Reza Safavi participates in the strategic dialogue of the Board, with particular focus on the long-term institutional positioning of Novi Education and on the criteria through which the company evaluates new programme verticals and partner institutions. His role is not operational; it is the role of someone who reminds the company, in every conversation, of the longer time horizon against which its work will eventually be judged.
That contribution is most concretely visible in the discipline with which Novi has chosen to focus, in its first phase, on a single flagship — Moonshot — rather than on a diversified portfolio attempting to do everything at once. The conviction that credibility compounds through restraint, not through expansion, is a conviction Reza Safavi has consistently brought into the founding conversation.
Alongside his Board engagement, he maintains relationships across the philanthropic, cultural and educational landscape that inform Novi’s institutional dialogue at the highest level — and that, in some of the conversations under way, will shape the partnerships through which future Novi programmes come into being.
The full team includes founders, advisors and operations – discover everyone on the team page.
