Growing up between Kingston, Jamaica, and Miami, Florida, brothers David and Robert Mullings were raised to act with generosity and integrity and strive to have a positive impact on those around them.
As David Mullings related in a 2020 interview with the University of Miami, “My mom and dad raised me to believe that if you think you can help one person, help one person. If you think you can help 100 people, help 100. If you can help 3 million, then you should go after that.”
Now, the Mullings family—David and Robert, and their parents, Anthony and Dorothy—are reaffirming that philosophy with a commitment to establish the Mullings Family Endowed Business Scholarship at the University of Miami Patti and Allan Herbert School of Business.
The scholarship aims, as Anthony Mullings put it, “to help produce scholars who will benefit the Caribbean.” With a matching contribution from the Herbert Challenge Match, the endowment's total value will reach $2.5 million.
The family’s gift is part of the University’s Ever Brighter: The Campaign for Our Next Century. The most ambitious in the University’s history, the campaign is set to conclude this spring as part of the University’s yearlong centennial celebration.
“David Mullings and his family’s generous commitment to endow a scholarship at Miami Herbert exemplifies the transformative power of education and philanthropy,” said Paul A. Pavlou, the school’s dean. “This gift will open doors for aspiring business leaders, particularly those from the Caribbean region, who will bring their unique perspectives and talents to our community. We are deeply grateful for the Mullings family’s dedication to empowering the next generation of leaders.”
As young men, the Mullings brothers were ambitious and academically precocious. Having started their higher education at Broward College in their mid-teens, they both transferred to the University of Miami, where David earned his bachelor’s degree in 2000 at age 19, and Robert did the same a year later.
“I knew I was always going to do something related to business in the Caribbean and Latin America. I needed to go to the right school, and I needed the right network,” David Mullings recalled. “The University of Miami was the best option, with Miami being the capital of the Caribbean and Latin America.”
He received scholarship support to pursue his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the U, which, as he has said, “made it easier for my family to afford for Robert to attend the University of Miami with me. I want to pay it forward.”
The brothers both earned M.B.A. degrees at Miami Herbert in 2003. Reflecting on the difficulties inherent in being several years younger than his graduate classmates, Robert Mullings, who was 21 when he got his M.B.A., said, “It was challenging, but everyone made me feel so welcome, and the energy and motivation kept me going.”
Anthony Mullings, a retired physician, preceded his sons at the University, where he earned a Master of Public Health in 1998. But, as David Mullings related, it was their mother, Dorothy, whose career led to the family’s deep connection to Miami.
“I also benefited from the generosity of others," Dorothy Mullings reflected. A registered nurse, she trained in the United Kingdom and Jamaica before she got the opportunity to work at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. “The seed was sown, and from there we nurtured [the values] of doing the right thing and helping others. It was always part of the family upbringing.”
The parents also encouraged entrepreneurial ambitions in their sons.
In a class during their first semester in Miami Herbert’s M.B.A. program, the brothers pitched the idea that would become their first company, the one their parents would finally invest in. Called Random Media, the company ran a website called RealVibez that at one point became the most extensive online platform for Caribbean music videos and YouTube’s first Caribbean media partner.
“We were in a class together and presented our idea to the class,” David Mullings explained. “One person offered to invest $10,000 and the professor said, ‘I think you guys are on to something.’ Then we pitched Mom and Dad, and they said they’d put in the $10,000. [We thought] we could actually do this now, not wait until we graduated.”
The brothers leaned in on the University’s Launch Pad's expertise to understand how to start the business and applied lessons learned from their classes at Miami Herbert in running and growing the business. And, as David Mullings said, the education and connections he and his brother gained at Miami Herbert “changed the trajectory of our lives.”
Since then, David Mullings has worked in private equity, at a hedge fund, overseen the launch of the online banking platform for a Jamaican financial institution, and worked tirelessly to improve long-term prosperity for people across the Caribbean—a matter of profound importance to him.
“Where you are born, the decade you’re born in, and the people you are born to all have a massive impact on the trajectory of your life, for good or bad,” he said. “I don’t want people born in the Caribbean to have to leave to accomplish what I’ve accomplished.” His current firm, Blue Mahoe Holdings, Inc., of which he is the chairman and CEO, is a Miami-based private investment firm focused primarily on the Caribbean.
David Mullings also maintains strong connections with his alma mater. Currently, he serves as a vice president on the University’s Alumni Board of Directors and is on the Latin America and the Caribbean Initiatives Advisory Board for Miami Herbert Business School.
Robert Mullings sits on Blue Mahoe’s board, but his primary focus is a nonprofit preschool in Hollywood, Florida. “It had been around for more than 20 years and was about to close its doors,” he recounted. “My experience at Miami Herbert Business School gave me the confidence that I could turn it around.”
Now a highly rated preschool, the Mullings Academy provides tuition subsidies to families who could not otherwise afford to enroll their children. “We want to make sure that every child gets the foundation they need to be ready for school,” Robert Mullings said.
Empowerment—of individual students or whole regions—and a passion for giving back inform the family’s philanthropy. As Robert Mullings noted, echoing his parents and brother, the Mullings Family Endowed Business Scholarship “will help those who benefit gain the same experiences that helped our family.”
