Professor Modesto A. Maidique is the fourth and current president of Florida International University, Miami’s public research university. Under Dr. Maidique’s leadership, FIU has grown to more than 38,000 students and today ranks among the 20 largest universities in the United States. Dr. Maidique is the longest serving university president in Florida and the second longest serving research university president in the country. A professor of management in the College of Business Administration, Dr. Maidique is an internationally recognized expert in executive and leadership education and high technology enterprises.

For more than two decades, Dr. Maidique has led the transformation of FIU. During his tenure, FIU opened the College of Law, College of Engineering and the School of Architecture. Most recently, Dr. Maidique spearheaded the historic opening of the new FIU College of Medicine, one of only three medical schools established in the last 25 years.

Over the course of Dr. Maidique’s presidency, enrollment at FIU more than doubled and the university added 22 doctoral programs and 18 undergraduate programs. FIU’s sponsored research funding grew from $6 million to nearly $110 million and the institution’s endowment experienced exponential growth from less than $3 million to more than $105 million. The university also added a Division I-A football team, earned membership in the nation’s oldest honor society, Phi Beta Kappa, and was included as a doctoral and research extensive university in the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching classification.

Dr. Maidique came to FIU with an elite academic and business background. He received his B.S., M.S., E.E. and Ph.D. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed the Harvard Business School’s Program for Leadership Development. He has held academic appointments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Stanford University. Published extensively in leading academic journals, Dr. Maidique is also contributing author to ten books. His co-authored textbook, Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation, is widely used at colleges and universities. An article he co-authored, “The Art of High Technology Management,” is one of the best-selling articles published by the Sloan Management Review. He is also coauthor of Energy Future, a New York Times bestseller on energy policy.

Alongside his academic career, Dr. Maidique has had a distinguished business career that complements his research and teaching. He co-founded Analog Devices Inc., Semiconductor Division. He also served as CEO of Collaborative Research, now Genome Therapeutics, and as senior partner in Hambrecht & Quist Venture Partners, the world’s largest venture capital firm. An electrical engineer, Dr. Maidique holds several patents for semiconductor devices. A past chairman of The Beacon Council, Miami’s economic development authority, Dr. Maidique currently serves on the boards of National Semiconductor and the Carnival Corporation.

Today, Dr. Maidique’s research focuses on leadership studies. He is currently interviewing CEOs of some of America’s top corporations as part of a research project titled, “The Elephant in the Decision-Making Room.” The research examines how one’s personality and life journey influence leadership decision making. As part of the research, Dr. Maidique has developed a behavioral model that traces the complex interplay between these variables in the decision-making process. Dr. Maidique argues that awareness about the nature of one’s own personality and life experiences can significantly facilitate better judgment:

When making the optimal call for our organization, all of us, consciously or not, have to reckon with the elephant in the room, the result of our personality/life journey stew. Our task as leaders is to develop a high level of self awareness that allows us to disentangle our persona and its inclinations from the decision that is best for the organization we lead. (Maidique 2009)

In addition to his ongoing research, Dr. Maidique brings his expertise to the classroom, teaching graduate students in FIU’s MBA and executive programs. In spring 2009, he directed “Leading Decisions: Preparing Global Leaders,” an executive and professional education program offered through the FIU Center for Leadership.

Dr. Maidique’s expertise has been recognized at the highest levels. He has testified before Congress on the issues of energy conservation and energy financing. President George H.W. Bush appointed him to the President’s Educational Policy Advisory Committee and he served in a similar capacity for President George W. Bush. He later served on the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board and has served for eight years as a member of the Commission on Presidential Scholars. Companies including IBM, Hewlett Packard and Honeywell have sought his assistance as a consultant. Numerous educational, cultural and business organizations have honored Dr. Maidique with leadership and public service awards. The Hispanic Business Journal has named him among America’s 100 Most Influential Hispanic Leaders.

Dr. Maidique is married to Nancy Maidique, a Phi Beta Kappa FIU alumna, and has two children Ana Teresa, a graduate of Duke University, and Mark Alex, a Cornell architect.