Student News

Florida State University College of Business students seized the opportunity to learn from three distinguished alumni during the college’s annual Legends and Leaders Day.

These three personify FSU’s global reach, and they literally illustrate the university’s celebrated family atmosphere. 

James Seneff, a 2006 inductee into the College of Business Alumni Hall of Fame and the founder and executive chairman of the Orlando-based CNL Financial Group, spoke as the guest of honor in a medaling ceremony for the fifth cohort of the James M. Seneff Honors Program.

FSU’s team of Steven Martinez, Ryan Deuitch, Ibrahim Gillani and Daniel White won the competition and a $1,500 first-place prize. The university’s team of Marisa Balzano, Anaya Daniel and Stephanie Remy placed third and won $750. 

The FSU Real Estate Investment Fund, or REIF , stands among only a few funds of its kind and size, with a balance of about $2.35 million only in real estate investment trusts, or REITs, and teams of graduate students managing its holdings.

Four Florida State University students, including two from the College of Business, made a 3,000-mile trip two weeks ago to a competition in Tacoma, Washington. But this was no mere journey. This was an odyssey that featured a storybook ending.

Two College of Business students saw to it last week that business schools throughout the country would take stock of Florida State University. Sophomore Mason Pullum and junior Cole Clemons, both finance majors, tied for first place with a team from Virginia's Washington and Lee University in the 9th annual Student Managed Investment Fund Stock Pitch competition at the University of Georgia's Terry School of Business.

Cierra McKenzie aspires to become a lawyer who works at the forefront of innovation of business and technology. She honed that drive as a Seneff Scholar in the Florida State University College of Business, and she will begin to see it through this fall at Harvard Law School.

Behind a second-place finish from Dabney Dennis and additional strong performances from Peyton Davis and Anna Marie Parisi, the College of Business placed eighth out of 80 schools last month in the International Collegiate Sales Competition, the world’s largest event of its kind. Hosted by the college’s FSU Sales Institute, the event measures a university sales program’s focus on overall business revenue-generating skills. 

Luke Hopkins says he doesn't want Seneff Scholars to see the program as another graduation medallion or as another line item on a resume. "I would want them to say it was a valued experience," he says