Luigi Peccenini

Wall Street Institute teaches people to speak (as opposed to read or write) English as a foreign language. It has provided MultiMethod instruction to over 2 million students. It operates centers in North Africa, East Asia, South East Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. It is branded as Wall Street English in China where it was voted the most renowned Foreign Language Teaching Brand of 2012.

In 1987, Peccenini expanded to Spain. In 1997 he sold the company to Sylvan Learning Systems. In 2000 he founded Wall Street English in China where he is known as Li Wenhao. In 2005 he sold Wall Street English to The Carlyle Group.

In 1986, Peccenini placed an advertisement in Switzerland in search of a business partner with capital to invest. He found one and together they set up Wall Street Institute Switzerland and eventually he regained control of its Italian operations.

In the early 1980s an investment in proprietary courseware for the business proved too onerous to sustain. Peccenini had invested all his money into developing English Online, a state-of-the-art multimedia language instructional program. He had also borrowed heavily from banks and individual investors, planning to meet his heavy financial exposure through high sales. But it didn't work out. As a result, his company closed down. The franchisees were able to continue their activity, but disconnected from his company. "I lost everything, including my health", he said. "But I didn't lose my desire or let go of my vision."

In 1972 he adapted his Computex learning methodology to the teaching of English as a foreign language and established Wall Street Institute in Milan to market it. He later franchised the business to fuel expansion and over the next few years over 50 centers opened in Italy.

In 1968, he set up Computex to provide training for programmers operating mainframes. He sourced manuals from IBM, Siemens, Honeywell and General Electric called ‘Programmed Instruction’, i.e. self-training handbooks with multiple-choice questions. They had answers at the end of the book so that trainees could check they were answering the questions correctly. He removed the answers and replaced the checking process with a teacher. Students would study a manual at home, in their own time and at their own pace. When ready, they would go to Computex to have a tutorial with a teacher. One student might need to study at home for three hours, another 10 hours, another three days, and so on.

Luigi Tiziano "Pecce" Peccenini (born in Ferrara, Italy in 1939) is a learning innovator, entrepreneur, company advisor and educator/speaker on health, happiness and success in business. He is best known for having founded Wall Street Institute in 1972 to commercialise MultiMethod, a learning methodology that he devised that is student- rather than teacher-centric.