Vicky Colbert is the founder and executive director of Fundación Escuela Nueva. She is the inaugural Yidan Prize for Education Development Laureate. Vicky is a Sociologist from Javeriana University in Colombia. She pursued her graduate studies in Sociology of Education and Comparative International Education at Stanford University in the USA. In 2015, the American University of Nigeria distinguished her with an Honoris Causa Doctorate in Philosophy.

Vicky is co-author of the worldwide renowned Escuela Nueva model and was its first National Coordinator. She has pioneered, expanded, and sustained educational innovation from many organizational spheres: as Vice-minister of Education of Colombia, UNICEF's Education Adviser for LAC, and now from Fundación Escuela Nueva (FEN), an NGO she founded to ensure its quality, sustainability, and innovation.

She has been recognized with several awards and distinctions in the fields of leadership and social entrepreneurship, such as the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, the 2013 WISE Prize for Education Laureate, the Clinton Global Citizenship Award, and the Kravis Prize. She has also been recognized as Outstanding Social Entrepreneur by the Schwab Foundation, Ashoka, and the World Technology Network.