Graduates from Bolivia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Venezuela and more were on hand in Miami for a series of talks examining the region’s future. The sessions were part of Northeastern’s 2025 Global Leadership Summit.
The societal headwinds facing many Latin American countries are similar to those in other parts of the developed world, if more acute — access to affordable health care, geopolitical conflict, climate and nurturing economic innovation.
During Northeastern University’s 2025 Global Leadership Summit, members of the Northeastern community gathered to examine those issues in Miami, the city known as the “Gateway to Latin America.”
Graduates from a range of countries across the region — Guatemala, Bolivia, Costa Rica and Venezuela, to name a few — heard from leaders in health care, venture capital, government and global security.
From those different vantage points, the day’s speakers shed light on the region as a cauldron of challenges and opportunities that ripple across the world.
Miami, home to one of Northeastern’s 14 global campuses, is a perfect window into — and mirror of — those challenges, said Alberto Ibarguen, the former president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and a longtime Miami resident.
“My first language was Spanish, and it’s a feature of this place,” said Ibarguen, a pioneer of journalism and philanthropy who was awarded an honorary doctorate from Northeastern in 2023. “People have made millions here who have trouble with the English language. We have a cultural openness and atmosphere that invites people in, and there’s a parallel market that we have leveraged and integrated.”
Some of the day’s biggest takeaways were:
In a morning session, Northeastern graduate and TV news anchor Rhondella Richardson interviewed Michael T. Plehn, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general and the former deputy of Southern Command, which includes Central America, South America, the Caribbean and the Gulf or Mexico.
“If you are interested in learning more about us, Latin American relations and partnerships that we have in the region, there is no one closer to the source than U.S. Southern Command,” Richardson said.
Plehn shed light on the region’s interplay with U.S. national security, as well as leadership insights gleaned from decades of helping manage its biggest threats. He pointed to China’s Belt and Road initiative, which has made China a top trading partner for many Latin American countries in relationships that are sometimes at odds with U.S. priorities.
“Nations do what is in their interests, period,” Plehn said. “Look at the security challenges in your own neighborhood. Then look at your partner’s. Where do they intersect? What is that national security need you are trying to solve?”
He added that the area’s unique geography makes it an eventful case study in resilience against natural disasters.
Hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions all happen in Latin America, and they happen every single year,” Plehn said. “The capability of countries to deal with that varies widely, and there are some events that overwhelm anyone’s resources.”
Aiding in such crises effectively -— and in a mutually beneficial way — involves listening.
“Some of the most useful and helpful security programs we have are the training events where you’re directly interacting with your partners out in the field,” Plehn said. “You’re seeing their problems, their capabilities. You’re not just coming in and saying, ‘This is how the United States does it. You ought to do it this way.’ That is a horrible way to start a conversation.
During the summit, Northeastern university president Joseph E. Aoun had an expansive conversation with H.E. Juan Manuel Santos, the former president of Colombia and a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. During their talk, Santos drew on lessons from a long career in military and government to shed light on the biggest threats facing the globe – and how infighting among countries and governments in Latin America and elsewhere hamper work toward solutions.
“Our problems with the economy and social problems are the product of what is happening all around the world: polarization.” Santos said. “Everybody is fighting with everybody else: Argentina with Brazil, Mexico with Ecuador, Colombia with Peru. But we also have great opportunities in Latin America. We have the potential to feed the world. We have the potential of clean energy, biodiversity. We can have an important future.”
Santos continued: “The answer is strong, bold, compassionate leadership, and that is lacking. We have had leaders who only think about the short term. They don’t have the courage to sit down and have a constructive dialogue with other leaders.”
In the afternoon, Chris Viehbacher, CEO of the pharmaceutical giant Biogen and a Northeastern University trustee, spoke about health care challenges in the region with Cynthia Orofo, a double Husky with a nursing degree and a Ph.D., as well as a Women Who Empower Innovator. Viehbacher noted that while there’s been progress, Latin America trails the global average in life expectancy; at the same time, citizens have higher out-of-pocket health care costs than those of the U.S. or Europe.
“Obviously, we have treatments, but to help people beyond the rich countries you also have to build health care systems,” Viehbacher said. “And improvements in health care can drive economic development.”
Viehbacher noted certain developments, including regulations allowing pharmaceutical companies to sell treatments like vaccines to emerging markets for no profit, as well as manufacturing medicines in those places, were important. But he added that education could help get to the root of the problem, in the form of more training for doctors and nurses in preventative medicine and international exchange programs.
He argued that investing in public health this way — beyond the world’s richest nations — will help safeguard everyone against the next pandemic.
“Primary care is a problem everywhere, and it’s the most important.” He said. “It’s a basic way you can prevent a lot of diseases. Universities can bring in top talent around the world and train them in building health care in these countries.”
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Instability, political or otherwise, would not seem to make for a great startup environment. But a panel of investors including Vicente Zavarce, a 2016 graduate of the D’Amore McKim School of Business and founder of the Venezuelan tech platform Yummy, agreed it can breed innovation.
“Crashes are not fun but the most fascinating companies are created during crashes,” said Laura González-Estéfani, who was an early Facebook employee and is now the founder and CEO of TheVentureCity, a venture capital firm. As investors, she said, the job is to look for overlooked opportunities, and they abound in Latin America thanks to low operating costs, growing tech talent in countries like Brazil, and the ease of conducting business across time zones.
Zavarce, for example, has grown Yummy into the go-to delivery app in Venezuela for everything from rides to food. He’s done it during a time of ongoing political tumult in the country, most recently with disputes over the 2024 presidential election.
After a failed bid to expand Yummy internationally, Zavarce doubled down on Venezuela — a move he says saved the company and made it profitable. It’s now valued at over $200 million.
“Founders in the rest of the world need to exist, no matter what,” Zavarce said. “A lot of people asked me what my exit was going to be, but there isn’t one. “I just want to build the biggest tech company in Venezuela’s history.”
“It doesn’t matter if you build a fascinating company in the U.S. anymore,” González-Estéfani agreed. “Talent has no ZIP code.”