Gary Carrier

Who they are

Gary Carrier is Co-Founder and CEO of KODIE — previously founded Plataforma Impact, a 501c3 delivering IT training in low-income communities in Rio de Janeiro, and holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Person

Gary co-founded KODIE in January 2026 when the company was a blank-sheet early-stage startup — he came in as both architect and operator from day one. His MA from UC Berkeley set an academic foundation, and his career since has moved consistently across the impact-tech corridor: full-cycle investment manager at MCE, Global Operations Lead at New Story (the housing nonprofit), then founder of Plataforma Impact — a 501c3 he built to deliver IT skills training in low-income communities in Rio de Janeiro and match that junior talent with companies, which he later wound down. The through-line is capital-meets-community: every role has sat at the intersection of economic access, technology, and organizational scale. He is also a Presidential Fellow at UNLV, where he led technology deployments supporting Super Bowl LVIII and 1,000+ local businesses, and sits on the Investment Advisory Group at Desert Forge Ventures. He writes the Plataforma Newsletter on LinkedIn — recurring posts on tech talent, community building, and distributed work — and has spoken at NY Tech Week and Boston Tech Week in 2026; his public themes run across AI's impact on software engineering, open talent economies, and what he calls profit-and-purpose in inclusive tech communities. A black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and a PADI diver — the kind of person who takes on long, deliberate skill-building outside work too.

Company

KODIE raised $10M in user acquisition financing in March 2026 from PvX Partners for its AI-powered edtech platform expansion — a notable early capital event for a company founded just two months prior. The most recent public signal is KODIE's announcement of a continuous development model: a structured approach to building global technology teams that combines technical and cognitive evaluation, rigorous screening, continuous mentorship, and AI-native readiness. The platform connects US companies with elite nearshore talent across Latin America, and runs KODIE Academy alongside it — a tech community upskilling 1,200+ technologists per year from Latin America in AI, Cloud, Data, and Cybersecurity. The combination of a staffing/talent marketplace and an attached training academy gives KODIE a supply-side flywheel that most staffing plays lack.

Market

KODIE competes in the online courses and technology skill development market, with a specific focus on nearshore Latin American talent for US companies — a segment that sits at the overlap of edtech and tech staffing. The AI-powered education sector is projected to grow at a CAGR exceeding 25% through 2030, drawing private capital even amid geopolitical uncertainty. The nearshore tech talent space is crowded with both pure staffing firms and pure edtech providers, but KODIE's dual model — train the talent, then place it — gives it a differentiated position against either category alone.

Network

No direct edge data is available from the claims. Gary's institutional connections include PvX Partners (KODIE's financing partner), Desert Forge Ventures (where he sits on the Investment Advisory Group), Latitud (where he is an LF4 Fellow), and UNLV (Presidential Fellow). These anchors suggest a network spanning Latin American startup ecosystems, US-based impact investors, and Las Vegas's emerging tech community.

How they likely show up

  • Founded three organizations — KODIE, KODIE Academy, and Plataforma Impact — across two continents → high agency, builds rather than joins, and probably impatient with slow consensus processes.
  • Moved from investment management to nonprofit operations to founder, all within impact-adjacent tech → likely frames business decisions through a dual lens of financial return and social outcome, not one or the other.
  • Active LinkedIn writer on the Plataforma Newsletter and at NY Tech Week and Boston Tech Week in 2026 → comfortable being visible and building in public; probably responds well to direct engagement with his ideas.
  • Black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu → signals a tolerance for long, uncomfortable learning curves and a comfort with close-contact, iterative feedback — the opposite of someone who avoids hard conversations.
  • Founded KODIE in January 2026 and closed a $10M financing round by March 2026 → operates fast, likely expects meetings to move toward a decision or next action, not circulate.

Conversation tips

  • → Reference the continuous development model KODIE just announced — he's clearly thought hard about what rigorous talent evaluation looks like in an AI-native world, and it's a genuine point of differentiation worth asking about.
  • → Acknowledge the Plataforma Impact arc — shutting down a nonprofit you founded to launch a for-profit successor is a deliberate bet, and he'll have a clear point of view on why the model changed.
  • → Ask about the KODIE Academy supply flywheel — 1,200+ technologists per year is a specific number with strategic implications; he'll want to talk about why owning supply matters.
  • → Don't skip the Latin America angle — his whole operating thesis is built around nearshore talent from that region; treat it as a strategic conviction, not just a cost play.
  • → He's a Latitud LF4 Fellow and Desert Forge Ventures advisor — if you have any Latin American startup or Southwest US investor context, bring it; it signals you understand his world.

Toolbox

Openers

  • Open on the March 2026 PvX Partners financing — closing a $10M user acquisition round two months after founding is an unusual early move, and asking what drove the timing of that capital decision will get you a real answer fast.
  • Reference Plataforma Impact by name — he built a 501c3 delivering IT training in Rio de Janeiro low-income communities and then wound it down to build KODIE; that pivot from nonprofit to for-profit is a specific, deliberate arc worth surfacing.
  • Bring up KODIE Academy's 1,200+ technologists per year figure — it signals he's not just a staffing platform but is building the supply side himself, and asking how the Academy and the talent marketplace interact will show you've read past the homepage.

Discovery questions

  1. The continuous development model KODIE just announced emphasizes cognitive evaluation alongside technical screening — how do you define AI-native readiness in a way that's actually measurable at hiring time?
  2. You ran Plataforma Impact as a 501c3 in Rio before KODIE — what did that nonprofit model teach you about Latin American tech talent that a purely commercial platform would have missed?
  3. KODIE Academy is training 1,200+ technologists a year from Latin America — is the Academy primarily a pipeline for KODIE placements, or does it have its own standalone trajectory?

Avoid

Don't treat the Latin America talent angle as a cost-arbitrage story — his public writing and the Plataforma nonprofit history make clear he frames this as a quality and community thesis, not a cheap-labor play.

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Sources

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Generated by briefthecall.com from public web sources on June 19, 2026. Each claim is linked to its source above.

Automatically generated by AI from public sources. May be inaccurate or out of date. Remove or correct this profile →