Armando Codina
Entrepreneur
National Award for Leadership in Business and Philanthropy
Armando Codina first arrived in Miami as a fourteen-year-old refugee from Cuba. He sold his medical payment processing service at age thirty-three. Mr. Codina has been a central figure in Miami’s leadership circles since the 1980s. His commercial real estate firm, the Codina Group, has handled some of the biggest development projects in Miami. The first Hispanic chairman of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, in 2004 he led the successful Americas Business Forum at the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit in Miami. His civic achievements include the office of chairman emeritus of Florida International University’s board of trustees and co-chairing the Community Partnership for the Homeless. In 2003 Mr. Codina “adopted” Bent Tree Elementary School, then a “D” level public school. The program, part of the South Florida Annenberg Challenge, teams a CEO with a principal and education coach to infuse business strategies into school operations; it also requires a $100,000 donation from the CEO. Today Bent Tree is an “A” rated school.