March 29, 2024

Up and Comers

Aiming High

14 young Floridians who are already experienced businesspeople.

Vanessa Pineda | 7/1/2007

Mark Bouldin, 28
St. Petersburg

Job: A lawyer and entrepreneur, Bouldin owns the St. Petersburg law firm Bouldin & Associates, which he purchased in 2002. He works with 12 attorneys and has another branch in Sarasota, Bouldin King. He also owns Sun Coast Trust Co., which focuses on management and disbursement of trusts, and co-owns Savvy Buzz, a public relations company, with his wife, Cassie, 29. He partners with Florida First Development, a development company that is building 940 condo units and two mixed-use developments in Atlanta as well as several hotels in Orlando.

Education: Bachelor’s in accounting/economics and law degree from the University of Florida

Grew up in: Destin and Fort Walton Beach

On being the youngest in the conference room: “I let them know upfront that I was a genius, so they take it pretty well,” he jokes. He kept 95% of the clients he inherited — many 55 and older — after buying the law firm.

10 years from now: He hopes to be retired.

Advice for young professionals: “Go work for somebody until you learn the ropes. You have to be a risk taker and be prepared to handle stress. It takes a massive amount of time.

Turning point: “After law school, I just figured it was the best time to buy the firm. If I got horribly in debt, I’d still be young and have time to work it out.”

Weina Scott, 18
Miami

Turning point: For her 13th birthday, her parents bought her a programming book. She learned to program in a week and wrote the programming code for Switchpod using Microsoft Notepad.

Job: Co-founder of Switchpod.com, a website that offers free podcast hosting. In 2006, Pittsburgh-based Wizzard Software bought Switchpod for $200,000 in company stock, although Scott and 17-year-old Jake Fisher from Minnesota, who helped launch Switchpod, still manage the company. Scott earned $40,000 a year working 20 hours a week while still in high school. Switchpod receives more than 3 million downloads a month and has signed up 3,000 podcasts. Switchpod users include Harvard University, Hilary Duff and Emmy Award-winning film producer Greg Smith.

Education: Recent graduate of Michael Krop High School in Miami. She will attend Harvard University in the fall, where she plans to major in computer science and business while studying pre-med. She is already thinking of graduate school in business or medicine.

Grew up in: Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, for 10 years before moving to Miami in 1999

Biggest influence: “My father. He was a businessman, and he’s always taught me to work hard, to believe in your dreams and to go after them.”

Latest project: About to start another business. Plans to manage Switchpod through college, unless the workload becomes too much.

10 years from now: She hopes to be a CEO of a big corporation.

Advice for young professionals: “Work hard. (You) have to get an idea. It’s not only using the web. Once (you) get an idea and ask for advice about that idea, you write up a business plan and get investors.”

Tags: Education

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