April 26, 2024

Up & Comers

Young Guns

20-somethings who are helping to shape business in Florida.

Diane Sears | 7/1/2006
Michael Konig, 27
MIAMI

Job: Managing director of SMK Cape Horn Development Group, which helped lead the trend in Miami of converting high-end office buildings into office condos. In its first three years, the company has worked with three properties: One with 53 units on Brickell Avenue, purchased for $15 million; one with 38 units on Michigan Avenue in South Beach, purchased for $14.5 million; and one with about 70 units on Biscayne Boulevard in North Miami, for $22.5 million. The company has about a dozen employees, including four partners.

Education: Attended the University of Florida but left just shy of graduating with a bachelor's in political science and philosophy and a minor in business so he could work on a $650-million Donald Trump project, the Trump Grande Ocean Resort and Residences in Sunny Isles Beach.

Grew up in: Venezuela. Moved to Miami at age 15 with parents.

Turning point: First job out of college involved working with Gil Dezer on the Grande Ocean project and led to Konig becoming VP of operations.

Other experience: Served as president of the Communications Council for UF's Journalism College and associate justice of the UF Honor Court; worked for Jeb Bush's gubernatorial campaign; interned in U.S. Sen. Connie Mack's office in Washington.

10 years from now: "I plan to have office condos all around the nation. It's a specialty market. We've been working hard to go slow enough to learn it and do it right."

Advice for young professionals: "Work real hard and have a lot of patience. That's one of the things people are losing over time because of the fast pace of the world. I say listen. Go talk to the people around you ... and ask them how long it takes to get from a cubicle to a window."

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