22 Warrington alumni named to Florida 500

The Business Gators were selected as the most influential business leaders in the Sunshine State by Florida Trend Magazine, the state’s business authority.

The University of Florida Warrington College of Business is well-represented on the 2024 list of Florida’s most influential business leaders. According to Florida Trend’s list, 22 Warrington alumni are among the Florida 500, the most looked-to leaders across the state’s leading industries.

Of the 16 industries Florida Trend focuses on, Warrington alumni are represented in over half, including agriculture, finance/insurance, health/life sciences, law, logistics/transportation, professional services, real estate, technology/information and a section dedicated to long-standing business leaders called “Living Legends.”

See the Warrington alumni to whom others in their communities and industries look to for leadership among the 2024 Florida 500.

Agriculture

Jose “Joche” Smith (MBA ’91)

CEO | Costa Farms

Smith represents the fourth generation of Costa Farms’ family business leadership. Since its founding in 1961, the company has evolved into one of the largest horticulture growers in North America. Under Smith’s direction, the business has grown to employ thousands across three regions, cultivating over 1,500 plant varieties on 5,200 acres.

Read more about Smith in the Warrington Newsroom story, “Rooted in Solutions.”

Johnnie James, Jr. (BSAc ’80, MAcc ’81)

President and CEO | Lykes Bros.

James joined Lykes Bros. after a 30+ year career in public accounting serving large agricultural family businesses throughout the Southeast. In addition to being a member of the company’s Board of Directors since June of 2018, James has extensive executive and board level leadership experience across many diverse industries.

Finance/Insurance

Adria Starkey (BSBA ’77)

Executive Vice President & President | Finemark National Bank & Trust, Collier County

FineMark National Bank & Trust, which operates in three states, was founded in Fort Myers in 2006. In addition to banking, FineMark has wealth management and professional athlete practices. Starkey has been with the firm and Collier County president for 11 years. Prior to joining FineMark, she was chief operating officer of the Sanibel Captiva Trust Co. and president of the Naples Trust Co.

 

Doug Davidson (BSBA ’93)

Market Executive | Bank of America

Davidson has led Bank of America Global Commercial Banking in Tampa for 20 years. The bank’s branch offers treasury, lending, leasing, advisory, and debt and equity underwriting services to companies with revenue of $50 million to $2 billion across all major industries. Davidson has been involved with the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Chamber Foundation and has led three cornerstone research projects related to Florida’s critical needs in infrastructure, transportation and logistics.

 

Bo Boulenger (BSBA ‘82)

President & CEO | Baptist Health

Beginning his career with Baptist Health in 1985, Boulenger became President & CEO in 2022. Baptist Health is among the nation’s largest not-for-profit healthcare systems with a workforce of 28,000 employees and 4,500 affiliated physicians. Boulenger is responsible for the strategic direction of the health system, which includes 12 hospitals and more than 200 outpatient facilities and physician practices spanning four counties.

Health/Life Sciences

Charu Raheja (BSBA ’94)

CEO | TriageLogic

Raheja founded TriageLogic, which specializes in remote patient monitoring and nurse telehealth solutions to help health care organizations efficiently manage patient care. She has been CEO for 16 years. The TriageLogic group serves over 22,000 physicians and covers more than 40 million lives nationwide. She’s on the local American Heart Association board and volunteers as a patient facilitator for a stroke survivor group at Baptist Hospital.

Law

Brad Kimbro (BSAc ’87, MAcc ’88)

Executive Partner, Tampa Bay Region | Holland & Knight

Kimbro is an accomplished civil trial lawyer with significant jury and bench trial experience throughout Florida. He has served as the managing partner of its Tampa office for nearly two decades and has been active in bar leadership, including service as president of the Tampa Bay Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, chair of the Hillsborough County Bar Association’s Trial and Litigation Section, and chair of The Florida Bar’s Thirteenth Circuit Grievance Committee.

Logistics/Transportation

Beth Kigel (BSBA ’90)

Vice President | HNTB Corporation

Kigel is a global thought-leader in new mobility and smart city ecosystems and is responsible for assisting transportation agencies, cities and regions in developing smart and connected infrastructure solutions. HNTB employs more than 6,200 people nationwide and nearly 800 in Florida.

Professional Services

Avani Desai (BSBA ’02)

CEO | Schellman

Desai leads Schellman, the largest niche cybersecurity assessment firm in the world that focuses on technology assessments. Desai is an accomplished executive with domestic and international experience in information security, operations, P&L, oversight, and marketing involving both start-up and growth organizations.

Read more about Desai in the Warrington Newsroom story, “The unpredictable road to becoming CEO.”

Tim Giuliani (MBA ’09)

President & CEO | Orlando Economic Partnership

A private-public partnership with 40 employees, the Orlando Economic Partnership boasts of creating 21,500 new jobs and attracting $2.5 billion in capital investment over the past seven years. The Orlando Economic Partnership works to provide the Orlando region with quality jobs, economic growth, broad-based prosperity and a sustainable quality of life.

 Before coming to Orlando, Giuliani led two combined economic development/chamber organizations—the Greater Raleigh Chamber of Commerce and the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce.

Barry Gould (BSAc ’95, MAcc ’95)

Partner in Charge | EisnerAmper

With over 20 years of public accounting experience, Gould oversees the Florida Family Office practice which serves a variety of high-net-worth individuals and their trusts, investment partnerships and corporations, private foundations, and closely held companies. His client base is diverse serving individuals, families and businesses in the real estate and hospitality, health care, law firm, advertising, and sports and entertainment industries.

Real Estate

Craig Ustler (MSRE ’95)

President | Ustler Development

Ustler is an owner, investor, developer and broker of various property types including multifamily residential, student housing, hotel, office, restaurant, retail and mixed use. He has extensive experience in land sales, urban planning and highest and best use analysis. For over 25 years, Ustler has focused on urban infill projects as advocated by the “new urbanism” planning movement. In particular, projects have been concentrated in Downtown Orlando neighborhoods including Creative Village, Health Village, North Quarter, Thornton Park and the Central Business District.

Philippe Houdard (BSBA ’92)

CEO & Co-Founder | Pipeline Workspace

Pipeline is a premium flexible workspace with locations in seven cities. Pipeline has a network of coworking sites and thousands of members such as Google, Microsoft, Disney and Netflix, as well as numerous small businesses. Prior to co-founding Pipeline, Houdard founded SkyBank Financial and served as its CEO. He is also Founder and Chairman of Developing Minds Foundation, an organization that builds schools and supports education projects in areas affected by armed conflict and poverty.

David Martin (BSBA ’98, MBA ’01)

CEO | Terra

As the CEO of Miami-based development firm Terra, Martin has cultivated a portfolio of more than five million square feet of residential and commercial real estate valued in excess of $8 billion. The firm is active across all major real estate asset classes, including multifamily apartments, luxury condominium and single-family residences, retail and office space, hotels, and industrial properties. Martin oversees several facets of Terra’s business, including real estate development, design, construction, financing, marketing, sales and leasing.

Mitch Sinberg (BSBA ’01, MBA ’06)

Senior Managing Director | Berkadia Florida

Sinberg has been with Berkadia for nearly 12 years. In his role, he provides strategic vision and leadership to Berkadia’s seasoned investment sales and commercial finance professionals across the state of Florida, one of the firm’s top-producing regions. Since joining in 2013, Sinberg has increased the annual volume of Berkadia’s Florida region from approximately $200 million to more than $6 billion in 2021, consistently ranking Berkadia as one of the largest commercial and multifamily lenders in the state. 

Todd Powell (MBA ’04)

Vice President/Real Estate Development | Weyerhaeuser

Owning about 10.5 million acres in the United States, Weyerhaeuser is one of the world’s largest private owners of timberland. In North Florida, it’s in the process of developing multiple large-scale, mixed-use projects, including the 2,600-acre North Florida Mega Industrial Park. Powell has led all real estate development and mitigation services activities for the company since 2016. Weyerhaeuser employs 9,300.

Technology/Information

Melissa Medina (BSBA ’00, MBA ’02)

President & CEO | eMerge Americas

Medina has over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur, operator, investor, community leader and philanthropist. Medina leads eMerge Americas with a mission of helping transform South Florida into a global tech hub. The eMerge Americas signature event, launched in 2014, is a global tech conference held annually at the Miami Beach Convention Center. With Medina’s leadership, the eMerge Americas conference now attracts more than 20,000+ attendees from over 50 countries.

Suneera Madhani (BSBA ’09)

Co-Founder & CEO | Worth AI

Madhani and her brother, Sal Rehmetullah, created the payment processing startup Stax Payments, which reached unicorn status and is widely viewed as a Central Florida tech success story. Now they’re returning with a new fintech platform called Worth AI. Worth is a risk management and underwriting platform for AI-powered underwriting and onboarding activities, eliminating manual tasks and providing continuous risk monitoring. In 2021, Madhani was one of five Business Gators named to the 40 Gators Under 40 list by the UF Alumni Association. 

Sal Rehmetullah (BSBA ’10)

Co-Founder & CEO | Worth AI

Rehmetullah founded and leads Worth AI along with his sister, Suneera Madhani. The brother-sister duo hopes to emulate the unicorn the success they had with their first startup, Stax Payments, originally known as Fattmerchant. Their new venture, Worth, is an AI-powered platform for underwriting. It employs 20 in the U.S. and 15 offshore.

Living Legends

Brian Ballard (BSBA ’83)

President | Ballard Partners

Ballard, a University of Florida law graduate, built one of the state’s top-billing, most influential lobbying operations and took it global. Ballard Partners operates in Washington, D.C., Boston, Los Angeles, Nigeria, Israel and Turkey. It recently signed on to lobby for the Japanese embassy in Washington. Ballard led Florida finance committees for Republican presidential nominees John McCain (2008), Mitt Romney (2012) and Donald Trump (2016). In 2018, Politico called him “The Most Powerful Lobbyist in Trump’s Washington,” but he maintains close ties to Gov. Ron DeSantis. Ballard Partners also has hired Democrats like former Jill Biden spokesperson Michael LaRosa, former U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler and former Florida Democratic Party Executive Director and Hillary Clinton Florida campaign spokesperson Ana Cruz.

Ken McGurn (BSBA ’72) & Linda McGurn (BSAc ’73, MAcc ’74)

Owners | McGurn Management

If you’ve walked through downtown Gainesville, you’ve walked through the McGurns’ legacy. Since the early 1980s, they’ve been spearheading development projects that have revitalized the downtown and other parts of the city. They’ve focused on reusing existing buildings and infrastructure and bringing people back to live downtown. They renovated Gainesville’s historic 1898 opera house as a local restaurant and offices and created a high-tech incubator at the Downtown Technology Center. Their Southeast Quadrant Redevelopment Project — including Sun Center, Arlington Square apartments, Star Garage Legal Center, a downtown parking garage and 14 blocks of city streetscape — won national awards. More recently, they completed the 140,000-sq.-ft. mixed-use Union Street Station downtown. They also serve on volunteer boards and provide philanthropic support for numerous nonprofits.