WorldCity Business Magazine

CEO RoundTable

by WC

“I’m guessing that I’m the only one at this table born in this
country,” said Stephen Owens, a native of North Carolina and the president of
Swire Properties, when he introduced himself at WORLDCITY’s most recent
monthly CEO Roundtable breakfast. He was right.
Owens’ companions were Cuban-born lawyer Ramon Rasco, chairman of US
Century Bank; Brazilian-born and Argentine-bred Nicholas Anderson, president
of John Crane Latin America; Chilean Luis Eduardo Riquelme, vice president for
North and Central America at LAN Airlines; and South African Bernhard
Schutte, CEO of software company DMNI (Ditigal Media Network) based in
Fort Lauderdale.
Despite Owens’ homegrown status, the company he heads is anything
but parochial.
Swire Properties is part of a global behemoth, the Swire Group,
with two international headquarters, one in Hong Kong, home to publicly
traded Swire Pacific, and another in London, John Swire & Sons,
a private holding company.
Founded in 1816 in Liverpool and present in Hong Kong since 1870,
the Swire Group today has 136,000 employees working in
shipping, airlines, beverages, marine services, road transport,
trading, real estate and agriculture across the globe.
The group’s crown jewels include Cathay Pacific Airways,
China’s Coca Cola operations, vast agricultural holdings in
Australia, massive property development in Asia and a
prominent North Sea oil service company, not to mention
the venerable British tea company, James Finlay & Co.
Limited, founded in 1750 with plantations in East Africa,
India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
In South Florida, Swire Properties, the developer of
swanky Brickell Key, is leaving its distinct mark on the
Miami skyline and shoreline.
That a Hong Kong and London-based group would establish
such a strong presence here led to a lively discussion
about what is touted as one of South Florida’s most important
comparative advantages: its ethnic and cultural diversity.
From a sleepy backwater, Miami has evolved in large
part due to the influx of Cuban exiles into a cauldron of
entrepreneurial activity. And now it is increasingly a magnet
for multinationals.
“Diversity,” said Owens, echoing a common refrain, “is
Miami’s greatest strength.”
But Schutte, whose software business is booming in
South East Asia, southern Africa and other parts of the
world with the notable exception of Latin America challenged
that conventional wisdom. “When it comes to diversity,”
said Schutte, “Miami is way behind other
international business hubs. The diversity here consists of
Latin Americans and that’s about it.”
Schutte said companies in South Florida have barely
begun to look at Asia and Africa, and only when they really
take an interest in the world beyond Latin America and
Europe will diversity really flourish.
“The Asians are not even here yet, but the prospects for
Asia doing business in Latin America are huge,” Schutte
said. He sees the recent opening of the Malaysia trade office
in Miami (see Miami’s Malaysian Connection, p. 24) as just
the beginning of Miami’s Asian awakening.
Accepting Schutte’s challenge, Owens revealed that the
Asians are already present in a big way, at least in Miami’s
real estate market.
“Over the past 15 years,” said Owens, “some of the principal
owners of the major buildings in the Brickell area of
downtown Miami have been Malaysians, Singaporeans and
investors from Hong Kong.” Swire is currently working
with a Malaysian partner on a major real estate development
that has yet to be announced.
“Asians may not be here in terms of numbers or in terms
of restaurants we all know how hard it is to find a good
Malaysian curry but there certainly is an awareness of
Miami and real estate investment is often a precursor of
other things to come,” Owens added.
That may very well be, said Anderson, who runs the Latin
American division of British-owned John Crane, a precision
manufacturer of mechanical seals for heavy industry,
but he maintained “Miami is still heavily biased
toward Latin America.” He acknowledged that more
than 60 percent of the population was born outside the
United States, the highest percentage of any major
urban area in the country, but said “85 percent of those
people are probably from Latin America.”
And while the number of Asians may increase,
every participant at the CEO Roundtable said it is
unlikely to shift Miami’s makeup in a significant way
any time soon.
“It’s a simple question of geography,” said Rasco,
the co-founder of US Century Bank.
Rasco, however, is not concerned about the origin of
Miami’s residents. His company is too busy leveraging
the diversity, regardless of its breakdown.
US Century Bank, which focuses on small and
medium-sized businesses, is literally banking on the
entrepreneurial forces that diversity unleashes in
South Florida. “This area attracts people from all over
the world. They come here not just to buy a second
home but to do business and to open businesses,” he
said. “We see that every day.”
One sector attracting a lot of new investment at the
moment, said Rasco, is healthcare. “We see a lot of
loan demand for new healthcare ventures.”
Miami’s diversity is also a direct driver of business
for LAN, the successful Chilean-owned airline that is
a model of efficiency and profitability.
Growing trade with Latin America is boosting
LAN’s lucrative cargo operations and Miami’s concentration
of corporate regional headquarters is feeding
its business travel segment. But the market known
within the airline business as VFR, for “visiting family
and relatives, is also contributing to LAN’s success.
Latin Americans in South Florida are an important
component of that market.
“As long as people who live here but still have their
families in Latin America continue to do well, this will
be an important driver of our business,” said Riquelme
at LAN.
Although the roundtable participants disputed details
of South Florida’s demographics, they agreed on the
importance of a diverse community in building and
energizing the area’s appeal for businesses. All five participants
at this gathering banker, real estate developer,
airline manager, software developer and industrial
manufacturer are clearly the richer because of it.
But if diversity is Miami’s biggest strength, then
measures to discourage immigration in the U.S. may
be its biggest threat. Said Swire’s Owens, the lone
U.S.-born participant at the table: “Immigration and
the immigrant work ethic are fundamental to this
country and it’s critical that we not lose that. And it’s
particularly important for Miami because it brings that
international energy.”