Francesca de Quesada Covey

Francesca de Quesada Covey joined the economic development team as Chief Economic Development and Innovation Officer as of March 2023. In this role, de Quesada Covey will lead efforts to accelerate innovation, entrepreneurship, and investment in Miami-Dade to drive continued growth and build a “future ready” economy where all residents can succeed and thrive.

Francesca has served the County as Tech Innovation advisor to the Mayor since September 2021, a position funded through the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. In that role she helped develop the Miami-Dade Innovation Authority, an independent public-private nonprofit created with seed funding from the Knight Foundation, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, and Miami-Dade County to find innovative private-sector solutions to some of our community’s pressing challenges. She was also Chief Investment Officer at TheVentureCity, an early stage investment firm based in Miami. In this role, she oversaw the investment strategy for pre-seed and seed investments and supported the growth of their 108 portfolio companies.

She is a seasoned business development technology executive and investor with over 15 years of experience developing public-private partnerships and advising technology firms, elected officials, and government agencies. de Quesada Covey worked at Meta where she led and grew Business Development and partnerships teams focused on internationalization and growth. In her tenure she worked on connectivity, payments, and small and medium-size business efforts, culminating with a cross-company strategy role in the CEO and COO’s office. Before joining Meta, she served as Deputy Counselor of Strategic Engagement in the Office of Public Engagement under President Obama.

de Quesada Covey holds degrees from Columbia University (B.A., political science and French) and Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, France (M.A., finance). She is the daughter of Cuban immigrants, and along with her husband and two daughters she proudly calls Miami-Dade home.