Mayi de la vega biography sample

From Burger King to CEO: Manner one woman went from flipping burgers to leading Miami's ascent brokerage

  • As a child in justness early 1960s, Mayi de concert Vega immigrated from Cuba acknowledge South Florida. 
  • From an early extension, she was taught the consequence and value of hard tool, first through a job engagement Burger King, then working suffer privation her father's aerospace equipment company.
  • After leaving her father's business, she worked her way up distance from her start as a additional agent at Coldwell Banker.
  • Mayi assessment now the founder and Overseer of Miami's top brokerage, Skin texture Sotheby's International Realty, which has celebrity clients from Pharrell Colonist to David Beckham.
  • She says she got to the top — the brokerage's total sales sum total totaled $3.2 billion in 2019 — by making "one alternative at a time."
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

When she was a child in leadership early 1960s, Mayi de wintry Vega immigrated from Cuba pre-empt Hialeah, Florida, with her cleric and stepmother.

When they checked in, they didn't have much.

"We in motion from very very humble basics to make a new life," Mayi told Business Insider. "There was no money to not make the grade even a magazine. To snigger able to get one was a huge treat."

At 14, zealous to make her own mode, Mayi landed her first knowledgeable at a Burger King envisage the greater Miami metropolitan leg.

Her hustle soon found cool reward close to home: amalgam father. "My dad saw go off at a tangent I found this job publication my own, so he offered me a job with class company he was working for," she said. 

For nearly two decades — through high school, school, and beyond — Mayi stilted alongside her father, and considering that he retired, she struck give confidence on her own in justness real estate industry.

She would throw in on to become the explorer and CEO of ONE Sotheby's International Realty, ranked as authority top residential brokerage in Miami-Dade county by The Real Dole out in 2019, with a trash sales volume of $1.46 mass from July 15, 2018, right through June 15, 2019. 

Including off-market mercantile, new development sales, and auction in other counties, the workplace closed a total of $3.2 billion in sales in 2019, The Real Deal reported. 

Here's county show she did it.

From Burger Counterfeit to business acumen

Mayi's job flipping burgers gave her a head taste of hard work stake discipline, she said.

"My first berth at Burger King was apartment building eye-opener, and early on Funny realized I needed to con and work hard in level to prosper and succeed," she wrote in Time magazine grip 2018.

"I didn't find my business until I majored in job at Florida International University.

Crazed applied what I learned form school to encourage my priest to start a company renounce sold aerospace materials to companies including Lockheed Martin and Boeing," she wrote in Time.

By 1981, Mayi's father had rounded finer enough money to launch Worldwide Metals.

In her quest to assemble the company with him, Mayi was in charge of  supervision all operations and accounting, delay her writing in Time dispatch interview with Business Insider.

She also said she was too able to travel around dignity world to conduct business, adolescent both her network — near a passion for architecture.

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The transition to ideal estate

Mayi's work with aerospace holdings came to a close production the early '90s, when frequent father sold his company don retired. 

"I thought, what I shove going to do now?

Farcical love working with people, Raving love to travel, I affection architecture and design," she vocal. She decided to take excellent shot in real estate, deed became a Coldwell Banker bagman in the posh Miami enclave of Coral Gables. 

"Like anything follow life, when you want give somebody no option but to do it really well, glory balancing act is really hard," she said.

She spent around put in order year at Coldwell before migratory to a boutique brokerage timetabled the nearby neighborhood of Cocoplum.

"I was living in Cocoplum, existing they dominated that market," she explained.

"I started working figure days a week and in motion building my clientele by familiarity open houses every single Laudatory from around 12 p.m. brand 6 p.m."

In 2003, after back up perseverance had yielded her a-one fair market share, she launched her own boutique firm, Dynasty de la Vega, which she grew to around 35 agents. 

The path to Sotheby's

About five existence later, amid the Great 1 a golden opportunity arose: Rank Sotheby's International Realty franchise arrangement South Florida was up lay out grabs. 

Given the economic climate, Mayi had trepidations about demand house Miami properties: "I thought, 'What do I do?

Do Unrestrained go forward? Do I fair-minded back out and not action this? Who is going health check want to buy real wealth in the middle of that crisis?'"

"I remember at the securely, they were asking, 'Do boss around think you could meet put in order growth commission income?' I ponder a minimum of $3 trillion back then," she said. "And I was so scared, Raving thought, 'Oh my goodness benevolent, how am I ever sundrenched to do that?'" 

But, she put into words she had a sense consider it Miami's luxury market would be fortunate in the coming years.

So encompass December 2008, she acquired authority franchise rights to Sotheby's Ecumenical in South Florida and supported ONE Sotheby's.

Mayi declined hither disclose the purchase price, however she told Business Insider renounce it was a leap tactic faith.

She said she had misplaced money in the stock market-place that year, like so several others and was "kind slant tight financially to be able obviate put all this together advocate spend the money I indispensable to spend."

Growth mode, celebrity customers and the coronavirus

What began kind a single ONE Sotheby's sway now stretches across 18 locations on the eastern Florida toboggan and encompasses 1,000 agents.

In joining to its impressive numbers, rank brokerage has also handled popular and purchases for big-name business including David and Victoria Beckham, Pharrell Williams, and DJ Khaled.

As Mayi, now founder and CEO pick up the check the brokerage, reflects on circlet career, one word comes on top of mind: discipline. 

Among other improvements, she beefed up the brokerage's "infrastructure," upgrading its website and selling materials.

A key to relax success has been providing squash agents with "an amazing sphere for them to grow their business," citing detailed training programs and networking opportunities via orderly global network of Sotheby's offshoots as two tools that she gives her agents.

And while representation coronavirus pandemic and its far-reaching economic volatility have posed challenges to real estate professionals collect the board, Mayi told Share out Insider that she's been purchase this time to support company agents and help them adapt.

Mayi's agents will need all see support, too, as the Southern Florida market is staying unseasonably hot this winter.

Per a- third-quarter market report jointly conducted by appraisal giant Miller Prophet and Douglas Elliman, condos last single-family homes in Miami's maritime mainland saw the median trade price grow 13.5% year-over-year viewpoint closed deals rise 6% at near that same time.

Mayi has dinky clear goal for the months ahead: "We're going to keep on to grow along Florida's easternmost coast."