If you’ve spent any time looking at how business schools went from being local trade centers to massive global powerhouses, you've probably bumped into the name Jose de la Torre. He’s one of those figures who isn't a household name like Elon Musk, but if you're in the world of international business (IB) education, he’s basically royalty. Honestly, the way he moved between continents and institutions tells you more about the evolution of global trade than most textbooks ever could.
He didn't just teach. He built.
Why Jose de la Torre is a Name You Should Know
Jose de la Torre is most famously recognized as the founding dean of the Alvah H. Chapman Jr. Graduate School of Business at Florida International University (FIU). But focusing only on that is a mistake. It misses the decades of groundwork he laid at places like INSEAD and UCLA. Born in Cuba, he’s lived the immigrant success story that defines much of the Miami business landscape, yet his perspective has always been aggressively global rather than just regional.
People often get him confused with other academics because "De la Torre" is a common name, but in the niche of international management, he’s the one who pushed for "deep integration." He wasn't interested in just having a satellite campus in another country. He wanted students to actually understand the friction of doing business across borders.
He’s spent a huge chunk of his career arguing that you can’t just copy-paste a US business model into Europe or Latin America and expect it to work. It sounds like common sense now. Back in the 70s and 80s? It was practically heresy in some circles.
The INSEAD Years and the European Shift
Before he was the face of FIU’s graduate growth, he spent about 13 years at INSEAD in France. This is crucial. INSEAD is arguably the most "international" of the top-tier B-schools. While he was there, he chaired the International Business area and directed their Euro-Asia Centre.
Think about the timing.
This was during a period when the world was beginning to realize that the "American Way" of management wasn't the only way. De la Torre was right in the middle of that friction. He studied how multinational corporations handled their subsidiaries. He looked at why some companies thrived in foreign markets while others just died on the vine. His research often centered on the textile and apparel industries, which were the first to really feel the heat of global competition and shifting trade barriers.
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He saw early on that trade policy wasn't just some dry legal framework. It was a life-or-death reality for companies.
Moving to the Sunshine State
In 2002, he took the leap to FIU. At the time, FIU was a growing school with a lot of potential, but it hadn't yet cemented its place as a top-tier destination for international business. De la Torre changed that trajectory.
He brought a certain "European" sensibility to Miami.
Under his leadership, the Chapman Graduate School didn't just grow in numbers; it grew in prestige. He helped the school land high rankings in U.S. News & World Report, specifically for its international business programs. He understood that Miami was the "Gateway to the Americas," and he leaned into that. He wasn't just looking at the US market. He was looking at how Miami could serve as a hub for the entire Western Hemisphere.
It wasn't all easy. Building a graduate school from the ground up requires navigating messy university politics and fundraising. It's a grind. But he had the credentials—a doctorate from Harvard Business School—and the grit to make it happen.
The Reality of International Management Research
If you dig into his academic papers, you won’t find fluffy "how to be a leader" clichés. Instead, you find rigorous analysis of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the role of government in trade.
Specifically, his work on "The Toxics of International Business" (a theme he’s touched on in various lectures and writings) deals with the ethical and structural failures that happen when companies cross borders. He’s always been realistic about the downsides of globalization—the "dark side" that people didn't want to talk about during the hyper-optimistic 1990s.
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- He focused on how trade protectionism actually hurts the industries it tries to save.
- He looked at the "liability of foreignness"—the inherent disadvantage companies have when they enter a new country.
- He analyzed the transition of state-owned enterprises in emerging markets.
His approach was never just "pro-business" in a blind way. It was "pro-understanding." He wanted to know why the gears of global commerce sometimes ground to a halt.
The Most Overlooked Part of His Career
Everyone talks about his deanship. Hardly anyone talks about his service to the Academy of International Business (AIB).
He was the President of the AIB. He was elected a Fellow. These aren't just vanity titles. They mean he was the one setting the agenda for what thousands of other professors were going to teach. He helped bridge the gap between "Strategy" (how to win) and "International Business" (how to navigate the world). For a long time, those were two different departments that didn't talk much. De la Torre forced them into the same room.
He’s also served on the boards of various companies and organizations, including the American Graduate School of International Management (Thunderbird). This gave him a foot in both the academic world and the boardroom. He actually knew what CEOs were worried about at 2:00 AM.
What We Can Learn from His Approach
If you're trying to build a career in global business today, looking at De la Torre’s trajectory gives you a bit of a roadmap. It’s not about being a specialist in one tiny thing. It’s about being a "bridge-builder."
You have to understand the local context.
You have to understand the global system.
You have to be able to translate between the two.
He’s lived in multiple countries, speaks multiple languages (English, Spanish, French), and has taught on almost every continent. That’s not just a cool resume; it’s a necessity for the modern executive. You can't lead a global team from a cubicle in Peoria without ever having stepped foot in a different culture.
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Actionable Insights for Global Business Leaders
Building a global footprint isn't about flags on a map. Following the logic Jose de la Torre used throughout his career, here is how you should actually think about international expansion:
First, acknowledge the Liability of Foreignness. You are starting at a disadvantage. You don't know the unwritten rules. Spend your first six months listening, not "disrupting."
Second, focus on Institutional Voids. In many markets, the things we take for granted—like a reliable legal system or a clear supply chain—just don't exist. Your strategy has to account for building those systems yourself or finding workarounds that don't violate your ethics.
Third, Education is Perpetual. De la Torre stayed relevant for decades because he never stopped moving. He went from Harvard to INSEAD to UCLA to FIU. If you stay in one ecosystem for too long, your perspective becomes stale. Rotate your leadership team. Send your managers to different regions.
Finally, don't ignore Trade Policy. Most business leaders think of "politics" as a nuisance. It’s not. It is the environment in which you breathe. If you don't understand the shifting tides of protectionism and regional trade blocs, your business model can be wiped out by a single legislative vote.
Jose de la Torre’s legacy isn't just a building at FIU or a list of publications. It’s the fact that "International Business" is now a core part of the MBA curriculum. He helped make the world a slightly smaller, more understandable place for the people running the world's biggest companies. He showed that you can be an academic and a builder at the same time, provided you're willing to do the work.