Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Gloria Romero Roses, has been in Florida since 1979.
Gloria’s career in Real Estate spans 30 years starting with Community Association Management, then branching out into real estate development starting in affordable housing and community redevelopment as well as luxury high-rise development and for the past 7 years in assisted living. Gloria’s community affiliations include being a founding board member of Transit Alliance Miami, a non-profit advocating for walkable streets, bikeable neighborhoods and better public transit towards getting Miami moving safer, faster and happier. She is Chair of the Board for The Women’s Fund Miami-Dade focused on making Miami-Dade a place where power and possibility is not limited by gender. She is a member of the FIU College of Business Dean’s Council, a Board member of a global non-profit Catholics for Choice, as well as a proud Rotarian.
Gloria is a passionate advocate and activist for issues that include prevention, intervention as well as investment to reverse the trends of recidivism within our juvenile and adult justice system. Issues that were central to her role as President of Artspring, Inc., a non-profit focused on educational programming to develop self-growth and effective life skills for incarcerated women, men and youth as well as other at-risk populations in underserved communities. As a mom, she has problem solved with Miami Dade County Public Schools on the issue of overcrowding in our public schools yielding such precedent-setting practices as the first ever lease of an abandoned K-mart converted to “swing space” as interim relief of overcrowding. In 2012 Gloria decided to channel her years of advocacy and activism to be a voice for the families of Congressional District 26 that spans from Key West to Westchester and ran for U.S. Congress in the August 2012 primary. As a first-time candidate, she garnered 34% of the vote against a 2-time Democratic Party nominee holding him to 52%.
As past statewide Chair of Ruth’s List Florida, a political committee focused on identifying, supporting and electing progressive Democratic women to elected office statewide, Gloria was instrumental in scaling up the organization in order to elect over 85 women to local, state and constitutional offices as of the 2018 election cycle and growing an engaged community of over 25,000 members across the state. She was recognized as the 2019 recipient of the SHERO Award for her contributions. She is a past Vice Chair of the Workforce Housing Committee and Task Force Co-Chair for the Education Committee of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. She also chaired the FIU College of Business Dean’s Alumni Circle and was recipient of FIU’s Torch Award for 2010. As a past President of the Sky Lake-Highland Lakes Area Homeowners Association, Gloria infused its mission to improve the quality of life for over 17,000 residents within its boundaries of unincorporated NE Miami Dade County through advocacy, volunteerism and community. Gloria and her husband Tom have a 21-year old daughter Alexandra who is a technology professional in Atlanta and son Nicholas who is a talent agent in LA.