Florida Trend | Florida's Business Authority

A new generation of Florida executives is making its mark

FINANCIAL

  • Tampa native Beckett Brandewie started in pre-med at the University of Michigan — his late father, health care-focused venture capitalist Dick Brandewie, inspired him to try it — then decided to pursue health care among other industries from the business side. After stints at Raymond James, Ballast Point Ventures and Aspirion, he’s now with Canopy Capital Partners, a Tampa private investment firm acquiring businesses in the lower middle market.
  • Melbourne native and UCF finance grad Josh Paul, senior associate, Hyde Park Capital, Tampa, specializes in middle-market deals and working with the owners of family- and founder-owned companies, especially in health care, in exiting the businesses. He recently was appointed to the Florida Venture Forum’s board of directors.
  • CPA Laz Gutierrez, BDO, South Florida co-managing partner for assurance, spent 15 years at MBAF before it merged into BDO. He has experience in conducting audits of financial statements and advisory engagements in aviation, energy, real estate, construction, wholesale, distribution, non-profit and other sectors. He’s also provided buyer-side and seller-side due diligence advisory services for IPO candidates. His accounting undergraduate degree and MBA are from FAU.
  • Frederick “Rick” Pullum, president, One Florida Bank, Orlando, is a fourth-generation Central Floridian with a 20- year track record in commercial banking in Central Florida. In 2018, Pullum started One Florida Bank and now serves as president of OFB Bancshares and its subsidiary One Florida Bank, a $1.1-billion asset bank with five branch offices and more than 135 employees. He serves on the Orange County Tourist Development Council and the advisory board of the Central Florida Sports Commission.
  • Emily Dawkins, North Florida regional president, Truist, Jacksonville, succeeded Scott Keith in September upon his retirement after a 34-year banking career. Previously, she was capital markets originator. Her community involvement has included the boards of the Association of Corporate Growth, Junior League of Jacksonville and The Cathedral School.
  • Amy Hale, senior managing director and head of Southeast Expansion, BMO Private Bank, Naples, joined the bank in 2009. Along with her practice, which includes the wealth management needs of high net worth women, she focuses on bank growth and entering markets in the Southeast. She won the Florida Bankers Association Horizon Award this year, which honors one banker for above-and-beyond service to the industry. She has a bachelor’s in finance from Florida Gulf Coast University.

REAL ESTATE

  • Camilo Miguel Jr., CEO and founder of Mast Capital, Miami, has a $2-billion project pipeline in Miami and Tampa.
  • Jeffrey Ardizon, principal, multifamily developer the Estate Cos., oversees the overall direction of the firm, which has 13 projects in development throughout Florida. The firm has secured entitlements for more than 2,100 residential units from Lauderhill in Broward to Miami, has completed four projects and has begun leasing 1,187 units.
  • South Florida Vice President Kerry-Ann Wilson, Ram Realty Advisors, Palm Beach Gardens, was a summer intern in 2003, and later worked in leasing, site acquisition and development, including managing Ram’s build-tosuit program for Walgreens and Publix.
  • Zom Living Senior Vice President Kyle Clayton started as an investment analyst and now oversees projects from Miami to Tampa.
  • Britney Mroczkowski, vice president, retail development, BTI Partners, specializes in BTI’s Westshore Marina District in south Tampa, a 52-acre mixed-use project. An FSU dual degree holder in real estate and marketing, she’s done $100 million in commercial real estate deals in her career.
  • Ryan Hoover, president, TVC Development, a subsidiary of Vestcor, Jacksonville, was the lead developer on the Lofts at Jefferson Station, Jacksonville’s first workforce transit-oriented community. He has helped in acquiring and developing 22 affordable housing communities across the state since joining Vestcor in 2012 and has led an effort to provide development services to non-profits and local housing authorities in developing five specialized affordable housing developments that serve people with intellectual and development disabilities, those facing homelessness or low-income seniors.
  • Justin Smith, vice president, development and construction, St. Joe Co., Panama City Beach, began his 15 years in the industry while still at Troy University. For St. Joe, he manages residential, commercial and hospitality development from permitting through construction completion.
  • Florida’s leading condo developer, Jorge Perez, founder, Miami’s Related Group, has two sons in the executive suite: Son JP Perez is Related’s president and son Nick Perez is vice president.

HEALTH CARE

  • Perry Ann Reed, president, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, oversees operations for the 309-bed pediatric specialty hospital in Miami. She also is senior vice president and COO of parent organization Nicklaus Children’s Health System. She arrived in early 2020 from Raleigh, N.C., where she was executive director of WakeMed Children’s Hospital and Women’s Services. Before that, she was director of ethics and palliative care at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. She has a master’s degree in health care management from the University of Texas at Tyler, as well as a master’s in bioethics from Columbia University, and is pursuing a Ph.D. in health care leadership from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
  • Over the past decade, Gabriella West has risen from hospitality manager at Broward Health International to vice president of international services and global operations at the Fort Lauderdale-based public health system. West, who’s from Ecuador, got her bachelor’s degree in tourism from the University of Florida and an MBA in health care from Florida International University
  • Wendy Brandon, CEO, UCF Lake Nona Medical Center, oversees the new 64-bed teaching hospital in Orlando. HCA Healthcare, a for-profit company based in Nashville, operates the facility in partnership with the University of Central Florida College of Medicine. Brandon previously was CEO of HCA’s 221-bed Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford, where she oversaw the launch of the hospital’s level 2 trauma center.
  • Philip Cirrone, COO, Elite DNA Therapy Services, oversees the Fort Myers-based mental health care provider with locations throughout Florida. He has a bachelor’s in management from Florida Gulf Coast University and a master’s in exercise and health promotion from Florida Atlantic University.
  • Neuroscientist Joyonna Gamble-George and her business partner Gloryvee Cordero aim to create wearable medical devices that can prevent life-threatening conditions such as strokes and heart attacks. Their company, SciX, has employees in Tampa, Virginia and India.
  • As a senior product engineer at Arthrex in Naples, Rudraksh “Ricky” Khosla oversees the design and development of surgical implants and tools for the company’s shoulder arthroplasty team.
  • In 2017, Alan Keesee was COO at Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas when a gunman opened fire at a local music festival, killing at least 58 people and injuring hundreds more. Keesee, who helped lead the hospital’s response to the mass shooting, subsequently traveled the U.S. to speak about the need for health care providers to support both patients and one another during times of crisis — useful expertise amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Keesee is now president and CEO of the 266- bed Capital Regional Medical Center in Tallahassee, where he oversees more than 1,400 employees and about 400 physicians. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s in health care administration from Virginia Commonwealth University.

HOSPITALITY

  • Mike Harper, COO, Bolay, West Palm Beach, started as a teenage line cook. Some 34 years later, he’s in leadership at the fast-casual chain founded by Outback co-founder Tim Gannon and his son Chris Gannon. “Much of my career has been taking over a failing/struggling restaurant or an area of restaurants and making them better, until Bolay. Now, for the first time, I’ve had a hand in starting, shaping and growing a restaurant concept,” Harper says. Bolay has reached 20 Florida locations in five years and is expanding out of state. One of four kids raised by a single mom, he would make breakfast and dinner for his siblings. “I had to grow up and get serious quickly.” He was a sous chef at 19, executive chef at 21 and a managing partner at 26. He’s completed four triathlons since turning 44.
  • A 2008 University of South Florida graduate, J.T. Corrales, business development director, the Original Crabby Bill’s Family Brands, Indian Rocks Beach, leads the expansion of Crabby BIll’s Family Brands through joint ventures, management and franchising.
  • Lisa Lombardo, chief people and culture officer, HDG Hotels, Ocala, is on the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association board and advocated for the industry during the pandemic. She’s been a development director for a nonprofit, consulted with performing arts institutions, co-founded a performing arts conservatory and led and consulted with a wide range of institutions and organizations in the non-profit, financial, arts and higher-ed sectors, as well as with startups. An Ocala native, she’s active in the International Franchise Association and the American Hotel and Lodging Association, has a bachelor’s in communications studies from Furman and a master’s in public administration from the University of South Florida and speaks on culture and engagement.

NON-PROFITS

  • Led by Kerry-Ann Royes, YWCA South Florida recently formed an economic justice council with local business leaders, aiming to help 300 women of color advance in the workforce. The YWCA plans to identify women who are underemployed or unemployed and direct them into professional certification programs for high-demand fields such as health care, technology and construction. Royes, a native of Jamaica, has been CEO of the Miami-based YWCA since 2017. She formerly was founder of Arrow Consulting, advising clients on corporate social citizenship, non-profit leadership and community development issues. She also worked for the YMCA of South Florida as head of community advancement. She has a bachelor’s degree from Florida International University, an executive MBA from Florida Atlantic University and an executive certificate focused on strategic perspectives in non-profit management from Harvard.
  • In 2019, the Jacksonville Women’s Leadership Coalition released a study titled The Status of Women in Northeast Florida: Strengthening the Pipeline for Women’s Advancement to Leadership. One of the recommendations in the report was that a new position be created to address gender gaps in local business leadership. Human resources executive Angela Timberlake subsequently was hired as vice president of Elevate Women, an initiative between the coalition and JAX Chamber to develop a pipeline of female executives across Northeast Florida. Timberlake, who has a bachelor’s in computer and information sciences from Florida State University, previously was founder and chief empowerment officer of Brilliant Leadership Group, an executive coaching and talent consulting firm.
  • During the past two years, Min Sun Kim has helped Central Florida’s non-profit sector navigate not only the pandemic, but also the social unrest that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. As interim executive director of the Edyth Bush Institute for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership at Rollins College’s Crummer Graduate School of Business, she launched a series of talks to engage non-profit leaders on issues related to the pandemic, including the shift to online programming, as well as the debate over racial inequity in the U.S. She developed a survey on race and diversity within the non-profit sector and plans to keep the conversation going through future efforts such as a racial equity summit and diversity education series.
  • Suzie West is executive director of the Community Foundation of Northwest Florida in Pensacola. She previously was district executive for the Gulf Coast Council of Boy Scouts of America.
  • Michelle Detweiler succeeded Karen Higgins as president and CEO of St. Petersburg-based PARC, which serves adults and children with developmental and intellectual disabilities in Pinellas County. Detweiler previously was a board member and COO of PARC, and her father, Bert Muller, was president of the non-profit for three decades.
  • Ryan Orgera taught English in France before deciding to become a fulltime conservationist. He got his Ph.D. in geography and environmental sciences from Louisiana State University and served as a marine policy fellow in the Washington, D.C., office of then-U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. He later joined Pew Charitable Trusts, where he worked to save vulnerable shark species and stem illegal fishing globally. In 2019, Orgera, who grew up on Lemon Bay in Charlotte County, took the helm of the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation as CEO. “I’ve traveled the world, and no matter how many places I visit, the nature of Southwest Florida touches me like no other,” he says.

RETAIL

  • Andrew Koenig, president, City Furniture, is stepping up behind his father Keith, CEO, as the furniture retailer expands in Florida. Andrew Koenig has made his forte efficient management — he studied the continuous improvement method Kaizen in Japan — managing rapid change and carbon neutrality.
  • Matt Beall, grandson of the founder of Bealls, the Bradenton-based department store chain, became CEO in 2019, succeeding Steve Knopik, executive chairman and the first non-family member to head the company.
  • W. Brett McGill became CEO of boat seller Marine Max in 2018, a company where his father, Bill, was the founder, chairman and CEO. Brett McGill joined the company in 1998.
  • Michele Goodwin earlier this year moved up to president and COO of Ron Jon Surf Shop, the Cocoa Beach-based retailer. Previously vice president of retail operations and human resources, Goodwin had been with the company for three decades.

WHOLESALE/ DISTRIBUTION

  • Family-owned Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, Miami, North America’s leading wine and liquor wholesaler, has three offspring of CEO Wayne Chaplin in its ranks. David Chaplin, chief growth officer, has a University of Miami bachelor’s in business and a law degree and was a practicing attorney before joining the company and rising to lead the company’s team that identifies and pursues growth initiatives.
  • Jennifer Chaplin Tolkin, vice president, oversees the company’s handling of brands that are family-owned and also the Aperol brand. She has a bachelor’s in fine arts from New York University and is a graduate of Columbia Business School Executive Education in Women in Leadership.
  • Mark Chaplin, senior vice president, sales and marketing, supports sales execution across the company and leads its corporate supplier management team that is the national brand manager for key strategic suppliers. He has an MBA from the University of Miami and worked for financial firms and Gallo Sales previously.

 

Read more in Florida Trend's December issue.
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