Mission and Brief History

Who We Are

The Pino Center’s mission is to create entrepreneurial leaders and organizations in all segments of society, throughout South Florida and internationally.

The Pino Center provides the FIU community of students, alumni, and professionals with the knowledge and contacts that enable them to reach their entrepreneurial objective of designing and launching successful new ventures based on innovative concepts.

Our vision is to be a recognized international leader in entrepreneurship research, education, and outreach, as well as to be ranked among the nation’s top entrepreneurship centers.

The Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center 4I’S

This year, the Pino Center redefined its business strategy to be based on the concept of the 4 I’s:

International: “International” is FIU’s middle name. FIU’s CBA has been recognized by theUS News & World’s Report as one of the top 15 undergraduate and top 25 graduate international business programs in the nation. In addition, America Economia continues to rank FIU’s CBA for the fifth year in a row, as one of the top 10 business schools for Latin American students. The entrepreneurial ecosystem in South Florida is characterized by firms that have a strong international component. Therefore, the Pino Center is looking to work with large companies and investment firms seeking to co-venture with emerging ventures in Latin America and South Florida, leveraging the geographic significance of South Florida as the gateway of the Americas.

Innovation: the Pino center is focused on nurturing innovation based firms, those that build economic spillover and create wealth.

Inflection Point: we are seeking to nurture mature global innovative ventures that are ready to be developed to the next level, through leveraging cutting edge technology and management strategies.

Involvement: the successful execution of our strategy depends on the formulation of strategic partnerships both within FIU’s sisters units and external partners.

Laying the Foundation

The Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center at Florida International University (FIU) was founded in early 2003 as the Global Entrepreneurship Center.

In its first year, FIU was one of eight universities nationwide to receive a prestigious $3 million grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City to promote entrepreneurship activities on a multi-disciplinary, university-wide basis. The Kauffman Foundation grant has been instrumental in helping the Center to launch core programs.

The Kauffman Foundation grant also challenged FIU to raise additional funds from the business community. In response to this challenge, Sergio Pino and his partners in Century Homebuilders stepped forward to make a multi-million dollar investment to endow the Center. The gift will be matched with state funds under Florida’s innovative Major Gift matching program.

In recognition of this landmark gift by Sergio Pino in honor of his father, the Center has been named the Eugenio Pino and Family Global Entrepreneurship Center.