A Conversation with Buenos Aires’ City Director Andres Piacentino

From Corporate Strategy to Cultural Immersion

With more than two decades in corporate marketing at companies like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Barilla, Andrés brings a strategic mindset to his role, one now focused on building authentic, lasting partnerships across Buenos Aires. After transitioning from the corporate world into academia, he taught marketing at Universidad de San Andrés and later spent five years directing CIEE’s Buenos Aires study-abroad program.

This shift was deeply personal. Having lived abroad himself, Andrés saw firsthand how immersion reshapes perspective. “Living abroad changes your brain,” he reflects. “It pulls you out of thinking your place of birth is the norm. You start seeing that things can be done differently, and that flexibility stays with you.”

Building Immersive Experiences

To Andrés, when you are living abroad, immersion in the culture of where you are staying is daily life. It’s found in the rhythms of the city, children leaving school, commuters rushing to work, neighbors lingering on the street, and the distinct energy of each barrio.

In Buenos Aires, Minerva students begin by connecting with their immediate neighborhoods, then expand outward, building a layered understanding of Buenos Aires as a whole. Here, city experiences are a structured way to reach beyond what they would do on their own, enabling them to see multiple “versions” of the city.

Andrés says that the principle that guides these City Experiences is cultural immersion. His goal is that, at the end of these experiences, students should not feel like they just visited; but rather, once it is time to leave the city, they should feel like they are leaving a home.

Purposeful Challenge and Immersive Design

A key part of this approach is pushing students beyond their comfort zones—always with intention. He says, “You need to get out of your comfort zone for a reason, not just to see a neighborhood, but to do something there. When you have a purpose, you notice how your expectations shift and how the city challenges you in new ways.”

In the months leading up to the semester, Andrés and his team ensure that every area of study, from technology to humanities, is represented in the experiential opportunities. More so, these City Experiences are divided into two categories.

• Curricular experiences, which connect coursework to real-world Buenos Aires contexts
• Discovery experiences, which emphasize cultural immersion—bike rides through the city, cooking empanadas or alfajores, and engaging with local traditions in meaningful ways

Andrés’ intention is that the students enable meaningful engagement. He shared, “Anyone can buy a ticket to a museum or go to a tango show. Our job is to create experiences with a unique element, something that connects students to the culture in a way they wouldn’t get on their own.” 

Andrés notes that Minerva’s repeated recognition for innovation helps reinforce this approach. This reputation helps to establish credibility with partners, start conversations and gives partners confidence that they are collaborating with something forward-thinking. 

This innovative-focused approach drives his team to rethink defaults and design experiences that connect students to Buenos Aires in distinctive, unexpected ways.

Learning Through a City in Motion

Andrés also sheds light on Buenos Aires’ dynamics. Programming in Buenos Aires comes with the challenge of constant change, as political shifts, economic fluctuations, and social movements can transform the city’s mood week to week. You can’t function on cruise control here,” Andrés said. “You always have to keep your hands on the wheel.” 

Rather than a limitation, this unpredictability becomes a learning opportunity. Just as Minerva students adapt to a new city each semester, Buenos Aires teaches flexibility, resilience, and responsiveness, all skills that extend far beyond the classroom.

“The healthiest thing is to hear both sides of a story,” he says. City Experiences are designed to help students recognize bias, understand context, and form their own informed opinions—turning the city into a living classroom for critical thinking.

Leading small groups through neighborhoods like Recoleta and Palermo, he blends formal history with personal stories from his own life growing up nearby. 

“These walks give me a chance to connect with students in a relaxed environment and to share my love for this city. It’s about creating conversations, not just showing them a place.” In this way, the walks deepen cultural immersion by adding both historical context and a personal sense of connection to the city.

Leaving Buenos Aires Feeling Like Home

Across every experience, Andrés’ work reflects a consistent thread of purposeful connection and immersion with intention. His background in corporate strategy, academia, and study-abroad leadership has shaped how he curates experiences that move beyond tourism and toward meaningful engagement. Through this approach, Buenos Aires becomes a place that students learn to navigate thoughtfully, engage with deeply, and leave feeling like they are leaving a home.

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