Laurent Cros

Since January 2011, Laurent Cros has been the Managing Director of Agir pour l’école (APE), an association dedicated to promoting equality by improving reading performance in schools.

Laurent has been focusing on education topics for most of his professional career. After graduating as an economist engineer from Lille’s Ecole centrale in 2000 and as a senior civil servant from the Ecole nationale d’administration (ENA, 2007), Laurent went to work as the Deputy Head of the State Education Office at the French Ministry of Economy and Finance, where he specialized in education policies. In partnership with renowned researchers (J. Ecalle, A. Magnan, B. Suchaut, M. Gurgand), Laurent has participated in the launch of many large-scale trials on education and contributed to several scientific papers.

Laurent’s dual background in pedagogy and the French education system is a valuable asset to APE, allowing him to understand administrative language and logic while also acting as a facilitator of change. 

Before becoming a senior civil servant, he worked for 3 years as a consultant at Mercer management consulting/Olivier Wyman specializing in developing business strategy for major companies. Laurent has also taught a class in the Public Affairs Masters at Sciences Po on improving performance in education systems by using key findings of quantitative research.