“Who’s Here” 2015 directory shows strength of multinationals in South Florida
Here’s proof of greater Miami’s strength as the gateway to the Americas and as a world city: South Florida hosts 1,292 multinationals that have an office here and at least one outside the United States.
Their South Florida offices oversee annual business topping $303 billion. Their offices also employ more than 147,200 people in South Florida and oversee operations with more than 460,300 people globally.
Those details come from WorldCity’s “Who’s Here,” the 2015 guide to multinational companies in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, unveiled Jan. 29 at The Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.
More than 200 executives from multinationals literally from A to Z – from A+E Networks Latin America to Zyscovich Architects – turned out for the directory’s launch at WorldCity’s first Global Connections event for 2015. Like the multinationals themselves, attendees hailed from nations across the Americas, Europe and beyond.
“If you took away all the multinationals from South Florida,” WorldCity President Ken Roberts told the multilingual, mobile audience, “this community would be a shell of what it is.”
The launch event featured video interviews with four top executives from multinationals in South Florida, explaining what their offices do and even offering tips on how to cope with frequent travel and cross-cultural pressures.
“In life, you better learn to like what you need to do,” advised Western Union’s Odilon Almeida, whose South Florida office manages a money-transfer business spanning from Alaska to Chile.
Carmen Gonzalez-Sanfeliu, who leads Latin American and Caribbean sales for satellite company Intelsat. Photos by Carlos Miller
Added Carmen Gonzalez-Sanfeliu, who leads Latin American and Caribbean sales for satellite company Intelsat, “Don’t sweat the small stuff… Stressed is dessert spelled backwards.”
Gilberto Caldart, a Brazilian who leads MasterCard’s Latin American and Caribbean region, noted in his interview that Miami “has attracted a great human capital from Latin America.” So many people from Brazil and other regional nations live, work and play in South Florida that Cardart feels quite “at home.”
And business is constantly evolving, creating new challenges, the four executives agreed.
“The future of technology is going to be incredible,” Jose Antonio Rios, the chief executive at telecom logistics firm Celistics, pictured above, told attendees in person after his video presentation. “The next 25 years will be better than the last 25,” with widespread use of video-conferencing on smartphones, among many other innovations.
For the four video interviews, click here.
Multinationals: By origin, by gender, by zip code
Research for the 2015 directory found that a majority of multinationals with offices in South Florida are headquartered in the United States – a total 785 of the 1,292 companies here.
Of those based outside the USA, the largest number come from the United Kingdom (56), followed by Spain (55), Canada (42), France (41), Germany (35), Switzerland (34) and Japan (28.)
From Latin America, the biggest number come from Brazil (18), followed by Mexico (16) and Colombia (13). From the Middle Eastern region, the largest source is Israel (11), according to the directory.
Gilberto Caldart, a Brazilian who leads MasterCard’s Latin American and Caribbean region
By gender, men run 88 percent of the multinational offices in South Florida and women 12 percent. Among the top female executives: Romaine Seguin, president of UPS Americas, and Carmen Taylor, managing director of American Airlines Cargo for Latin America.
By zip code, the offices are concentrated in the 33131 area of downtown Miami and Brickell (196), 33126 area of Blue Lagoon near Miami International Airport (132) and the 33134 area of Coral Gables (118), according to the database.
Strength in professional services, transportation
The multinationals active in South Florida are especially strong in professional services and transport-related fields. The area is home to offices for all of the world’s 10 largest firms in third-party logistics, eight of the 10 largest in air freight and seven each in executive search and in accounting.
In addition, nine of the world’s 10 largest shipping lines call on South Florida ports, the research showed.
The 2015 “Who’s Here” is the most complete annual guide yet , thanks in large measure to the year-long efforts of WorldCity staffers Michelle Yan and Javier Alonso.
The WorldCity staff, including Michelle Yan, middle, and Javier Alonso, second from left.
“They prodded, they cajoled, they dug, they pondered, they tweaked and I might have even heard them beg once or twice” to obtain the most thorough information possible, Roberts wrote in his president’s note introducing the in the directory.
The goal, said Roberts, “to make our Who’s Here database as incredible a resource as any community concerned about its place in the global economy has ever seen.”
Global Connections is one of five event series organized by media company WorldCity to bring together executives in greater Miami on international business topics. The Global series is sponsored by Florida International University’s school of business, public relations firm Edelman, and air-conditioning systems maker Daikin.
The next Global Connections event is set for Feb. 27 on the “2015 State of Trust in Latin America.”