Get to Know the CEO of Sunstate Orlando (in the words of his colleagues!)

Alexander Diaz is the CEO of Sunstate Orlando , and his path here didn't start in Orlando at all. He was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela and lived there until he was 17, which is when he moved to the US for college. He earned his bachelor's in Sports Management and International Business, and from there went on to get his MBA in Marketing at Lynn University. 

That's not just a resume line either, Lynn's MBA program is built around preparing people to actually lead through change with coursework that pushes into strategy, critical thinking and decision making under real world pressure. It's a program that expects you to graduate as an entrepreneur prepared to join the world of business leadership.

After finishing his MBA, Alex made the move to Miami to start his professional career. Knowing that most of his background was based on theory, he sought to further his education by putting it into practice by learning from the ground up. So instead of going for the seat at the head of the table, Alex decided to try his hand in business to business sales to learn about a skillset his coursework determined was essential to run a successful company. 

From there Alex built his foundation the slow way, from the bottom up, learning the day to day relationship building that sales actually runs on before he ever tried to lead a team. He eventually joined the management team at a local sales company in Orlando, where he trained and mentored people using the same principles he'd picked up in Miami. 

That's also where the people who worked under him start to describe a pretty consistent pattern. Milton De Castro Mondlane, who reported to Alex directly, called him attentive and caring, and said Alex works to turn the people under him into protégés instead of just employees, building what Milton described as a supportive, competitive environment where one person's success becomes everyone's.

Terry Brown, who worked with Alex on the same team, said something similar, that Alex keeps morale high and has the emotional intelligence to actually understand what his team is struggling with instead of just managing around it.

Now Alex is the CEO of Sunstate Orlando, and from what he's said, that role is less about the title and more about what it lets him do, which is give people the same shot at growth that he got. He's also talked about wanting to give back to the Orlando community directly, not just build a company that happens to sit in it.