Edgardo Defortuna
FOUNDER, PRESIDENT & CEO, FORTUNE INTERNATIONAL GROUP, MIAMI
Defortuna likes to say he came to the United States from Argentina as a young man planning to take a three-month English course and return home. But he fell in love with Miami, earning his MBA at UM, and helping pioneer the Latin American real estate market that continues to change the city’s skyline with luxury condominiums. In the early 1980s, he says, “people were not focusing on Latin America as a potential customer for real estate.” Today the Fortune International Group is a full-service real estate firm that has built the Ritz-Carlton Residences Sunny Isles Beach, Auberge Beach Residences & Spa, Una, Missoni Baia and Gran Paraiso, among others. Defortuna serves as a member of the Mayor of Miami’s International Council and is director of the Argentine-U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Miami. He also works with Mount Sinai Hospital, St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, and Manos del Sur, a nonprofit that works to address childhood poverty.
