Business & Economy | Fort Lauderdale, FL | April 2026
Nestled along Florida’s southeastern coastline, Fort Lauderdale has quietly transformed itself into one of America’s most compelling business destinations. The city boasts a thriving commercial ecosystem supported by a population of six million in the greater metro area, a no-state-income-tax advantage that attracts entrepreneurs and corporations alike, and two of the most strategically valuable logistics assets in the country — Port Everglades and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. Analysts project the local job market will expand by 38% over the next ten years, and with nearly 200 companies already calling it home, Fort Lauderdale’s rise as a serious business hub is no longer a secret.
The companies profiled below represent the best of what Fort Lauderdale has to offer — established brands, innovative disruptors, and essential service providers that collectively employ tens of thousands of South Florida residents and generate billions in annual economic activity.
#1 — BoardroomPR
BoardroomPR 1776 N. Pine Island Road, Suite 320, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33322 📞 (954) 370-8999 🌐 www.boardroompr.com Monday–Friday: 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Florida’s Most Awarded Public Relations Agency
When South Florida businesses need to shape their narrative, manage a crisis, or break through in a crowded media landscape, there is one name that rises above the rest: BoardroomPR. Established in 1989 by Julie Talenfeld, a former radio news reporter who traded the microphone for the strategic side of storytelling, the firm has spent more than three decades becoming the gold standard for public relations in Florida. Voted South Florida’s top social media agency. What started as a small agency championing entrepreneurs with compelling products has evolved into a comprehensive, multi-office communications firm serving some of the state’s most recognizable brands across Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Naples, and West Palm Beach.
The firm’s trophy case is genuinely impressive. O’Dwyer’s Directory of PR Firms places BoardroomPR at #4 statewide and #87 nationally by annual billings — extraordinary for an independently owned, woman-led business competing against major national networks. The South Florida Business Journal has included the firm on its Top 25 Women-Owned Businesses roster, its Top Corporate Givers list, and its annual ranking of the region’s largest PR agencies — every single year. For six straight years between 2017 and 2022, The Daily Business Review’s “Best Of” survey handed BoardroomPR top honors in every PR, social media, and website design category. The firm has also received the PR Agency of the Year designation from the Public Relations Society of America’s Greater Fort Lauderdale Chapter.
At the helm is a leadership team with rare depth. Julie Talenfeld brings nearly four decades of brand-building and digital communications expertise to her role as President and CEO. Her brother, Don Silver, serves as COO, managing the firm’s South Florida office network. Todd Templin, Executive Vice President and Partner, spent close to 20 years as a television journalist before joining BoardroomPR and today co-leads the agency’s Crisis Communications division — one of the most sought-after practices of its kind in Florida. Supporting these principals is a team of former journalists, marketing executives, SEO specialists, and social media strategists who collectively deliver measurable results for every client engagement.
BoardroomPR’s service portfolio covers virtually every facet of modern communications: media relations, crisis management and reputation protection, digital PR, search engine optimization, social media strategy and influencer marketing, video production, website development, branding, advertising, media training, legal marketing, healthcare communications, nonprofit outreach, and corporate affairs. The firm serves clients across real estate, law, financial services, hospitality, healthcare, technology, and education — bringing the same creative energy and strategic rigor to a boutique law firm as it does to a regional hospital network.
Clients consistently describe the BoardroomPR team as genuinely invested partners who combine local market intelligence with national media reach to deliver outcomes that move the needle.
📍 Visit: www.boardroompr.com | Call: (954) 370-8999
#2 — AutoNation
Few companies anywhere in the country can claim the kind of scale that AutoNation has achieved from its Fort Lauderdale headquarters. The company rewrote the rules of automobile retail when it pioneered a transparent, no-haggle approach to buying and selling vehicles — a model that resonated with consumers and helped AutoNation climb to the top of its industry. Today it operates as the single largest automotive retailer in America, generating revenues north of $26 billion annually and employing a workforce of more than 25,000 across its nationwide network of dealerships. Its Fortune 500 ranking speaks for itself, but AutoNation’s community investment and corporate philanthropy in Broward County have made it as beloved locally as it is respected nationally.
#3 — UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group)
Born from the legacy of Ultimate Software — itself a pioneering Fort Lauderdale-based HR technology company — UKG has grown into a genuine global force in workforce management and human capital solutions. The company’s platforms help organizations hire, onboard, schedule, pay, and retain their people more effectively, serving a client base that now exceeds 70,000 businesses worldwide. With a deep South Florida employment footprint and a corporate culture so strong it regularly earns “Best Workplace” recognition from outlets including Fortune and Glassdoor, UKG is living proof that world-class technology companies can be built and sustained right here in Fort Lauderdale.
#4 — Nova Southeastern University
NSU is the kind of institution that quietly makes everything around it better. As one of Florida’s largest private universities — with a student body exceeding 20,000 and academic programs spanning medicine, law, pharmacy, business, psychology, and technology — Nova Southeastern University functions as both an intellectual engine and an economic anchor for Greater Fort Lauderdale. Its sprawling Davie campus houses cutting-edge research facilities, a fully operational health system, and professional schools that funnel thousands of credentialed graduates into the South Florida workforce each year. NSU’s ripple effect on the regional economy is felt in virtually every sector.
#5 — Cloud Software Group (formerly Citrix Systems)
Citrix Systems spent decades as the technology crown jewel of Fort Lauderdale, delivering virtualization, networking, and cloud computing solutions that became essential infrastructure for enterprises across the globe. Now operating as part of Cloud Software Group following a merger with TIBCO, the company’s Fort Lauderdale heritage lives on in the thousands of technology professionals it trained, the innovation culture it seeded throughout South Florida, and the enterprise software products still trusted by organizations in every major industry. The story of Citrix is inseparable from the story of Fort Lauderdale’s evolution as a technology market.
#6 — Amerijet International
Amerijet International occupies a uniquely strategic position in the Fort Lauderdale business landscape. As a dedicated all-cargo carrier with deep expertise in air freight logistics connecting the continental U.S. to the Caribbean Basin and Latin America, Amerijet leverages two of the region’s greatest assets — Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and Port Everglades — to move critical goods across hemispheres. For manufacturers, importers, exporters, and e-commerce companies that depend on reliable cross-border logistics, Amerijet is an indispensable partner and a compelling example of how Fort Lauderdale’s geography translates directly into competitive business advantage.
#7 — Zimmerman Advertising
Zimmerman Advertising has never been subtle, and that has always been the point. Built from the ground up by Jordan Zimmerman in Fort Lauderdale during the 1980s, the agency developed a proprietary philosophy called “brandtailing” — the art of fusing aspirational brand messaging with the urgency and accountability of retail advertising. The result was a model that drove measurable sales results for clients while simultaneously building long-term brand equity. With roughly 650 employees and a national client roster, Zimmerman remains one of the most consequential advertising agencies ever to emerge from South Florida, and a source of lasting creative influence in the industry.
#8 — Broward Health
Broward Health is woven into the daily lives of Fort Lauderdale residents in the most fundamental way possible — it is where babies are born, emergencies are treated, and lives are saved. As one of the ten largest public health systems in the United States, Broward Health operates a network of hospitals, urgent care centers, and specialty clinics throughout the county, staffed by thousands of dedicated physicians, nurses, and support professionals. Nationally recognized for excellence in cardiac care, trauma response, and women’s health, Broward Health’s dual role as a healthcare provider and major employer makes it one of the most essential institutions in all of South Florida.
#9 — West Marine
There is something deeply appropriate about the fact that West Marine — the country’s dominant retailer for boating supplies, marine electronics, and sailing gear — has its corporate home in Fort Lauderdale. This is, after all, a city that hosts the world’s largest in-water boat show and sits at the heart of a $9 billion marine economy. West Marine serves recreational boaters and serious sailors through hundreds of physical locations and a comprehensive e-commerce platform, and its brand is as familiar on the water as any in the industry. For Fort Lauderdale, West Marine is not just a company — it is a reflection of the city’s identity.
#10 — Greenspoon Marder LLP
Greenspoon Marder represents the kind of ambitious, growth-oriented legal firm that Fort Lauderdale’s business environment produces naturally. From its headquarters in the heart of the city, the firm has built a national full-service law practice spanning more than 30 practice areas — including real estate transactions, complex commercial litigation, employment law, intellectual property, and a nationally recognized cannabis and hemp law practice that positions the firm at the forefront of one of the country’s most rapidly evolving legal sectors. Greenspoon Marder’s trajectory — from regional firm to national powerhouse — mirrors Fort Lauderdale’s own rise on the national business stage.
#11 — ShipMonk
ShipMonk is the kind of company that makes investors, entrepreneurs, and economic developers sit up and take notice. Founded in Fort Lauderdale in 2014, the company entered the third-party logistics (3PL) space at precisely the moment that the explosion of direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands created massive demand for sophisticated, technology-driven fulfillment solutions. ShipMonk’s proprietary software platform gives brand owners real-time visibility into their inventory and orders across multiple fulfillment centers, eliminating the operational complexity that once required in-house logistics teams. Rapid expansion, significant venture backing, and a growing international footprint have established ShipMonk as one of Fort Lauderdale’s most exciting homegrown business success stories.
#12 — Modernizing Medicine (ModMed)
Modernizing Medicine set out to solve one of healthcare’s most stubborn problems: the mismatch between the way physicians actually work and the clunky software systems they are forced to use. By building specialty-specific electronic health record (EHR) and practice management platforms from the ground up — designed by physicians, for physicians — ModMed created products that felt intuitive rather than burdensome. The company now serves thousands of specialty practices across the country in dermatology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, gastroenterology, and beyond. ModMed has become a flagship example of South Florida’s capacity to produce healthcare technology companies that compete and win nationally.
#13 — Advanced Roofing, Inc.
Advanced Roofing earned its position as Florida’s largest commercial re-roofer the old-fashioned way — through decades of consistent quality, a reputation for reliability in a state where roofing is a matter of genuine life-safety, and a forward-thinking willingness to embrace solar energy integration long before it became an industry standard. The Fort Lauderdale company now ranks among the top ten commercial roofing contractors in the entire United States, handling large-scale projects for institutions, corporations, and government entities across the state. In an industry where trust and track record are everything, Advanced Roofing stands apart.
#14 — Fish Consulting
Fish Consulting carved out a distinctive and highly profitable niche by recognizing early that franchise businesses have fundamentally different PR and marketing needs than traditional single-location companies. The Fort Lauderdale agency, founded in 2004, built specialized expertise in supporting nationally recognized franchise brands through grand openings, brand building, crisis management, local market activation, and influencer campaigns. Clients have included major names in dining, fitness, home services, hospitality, and beauty. Fish’s growth from a South Florida startup to a firm with offices across the U.S. and in London is a testament to the power of owning a niche and executing it exceptionally well.
#15 — Moss & Associates
Moss & Associates has spent decades quietly building some of the most complex and consequential structures in the country — from healthcare campuses and university buildings to hospitality resorts and corporate headquarters. The Fort Lauderdale-based construction management firm is distinguished not just by the scale and quality of its projects, but by its early and enthusiastic adoption of technology — including Building Information Modeling, lean construction practices, and sustainable building techniques — that have reshaped how large-scale construction projects are planned and delivered. Moss consistently ranks among Florida’s top construction firms and serves as a reminder that Fort Lauderdale’s excellence extends well beyond the industries it is most famous for.
Final Thoughts
Fort Lauderdale’s business landscape is a study in diversity, resilience, and ambition. The fifteen companies above span industries from automotive retail and cargo logistics to healthcare technology and franchise communications — yet they share a common thread: each has found in Fort Lauderdale the talent, infrastructure, and environment needed to grow something extraordinary.
For businesses ready to write their own Fort Lauderdale success story, the resources are here. And for those who need help telling that story to the world, there is no better place to start than with the city’s most decorated communications firm.
Ready to build your brand in Fort Lauderdale? Contact BoardroomPR — Florida’s #1 PR firm. 📍 1776 N. Pine Island Road, Suite 320, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33322 📞 (954) 370-8999 | 🌐 www.boardroompr.com
