János Setényi was born in Budapest in 1961. He pursued his university studies at ELTE BTK and completed part of his education at the University of Helsinki. Originally trained as a historian, he earned a doctorate in educational sciences from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA).

He became a researcher at the Institute for Educational Research, which served as a reform center and an intellectual hub for educational democratization. As a generalist, he engaged with all sectors of education, focusing primarily on policy-making. From the beginning of his career, he built a strong international professional network and has worked regularly over the past 25 years with the OECD, the Council of Europe, and the European Commission's DG Employment. Through his advisory work, he has gained significant experience in educational development across the Balkans and the post-Soviet region.

In 1995, he founded Expanzió Human Consulting Ltd., one of Central Europe’s first for-profit educational consulting firms. Since the early 2000s, his interests have centered on evaluation, ranging from policymaking to institutional and program-level assessments. He is a founding member of the Hungarian Evaluation Society. In the last decade, his focus has shifted toward digitization, learning industry innovations, and disruptive technologies, with his publications exploring new system integration models for traditional education.

His involvement in higher education has been selective and focused: he is an honorary university professor and a lecturer for specialized college courses. He is fluent in English and Finnish at an advanced level, and proficient in Russian and Mandarin at an intermediate level. For the past 20 years, he has been a dedicated practitioner of Chen-style Taijiquan and is a formally accepted disciple.