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If you’ve been following Francis Suarez’s post-City Hall career on social media, you might assume Miami’s former mayor officially pivoted to life as a gym bro or fitness influencer (see: exhibit A, exhibit B, and exhibit C).
But while the 48-year-old might be spending much of his newfound free time tossing around medicine balls and doing handstand push-ups For The Gram, where he has seemingly blocked two out of three New Times staff writers, it seems he’s also recently taken on a more buttoned-up role.
On March 9, several months after leaving his longtime post as mayor of Miami, Suarez announced that he was appointed president of Alpha Wave, a Miami-based asset management company that invests in private equity, private credit, public markets, and venture capital. Alpha Wave’s private equity arm focuses on AI-driven tech companies, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
“Proud to serve as Alpha Wave’s newly appointed President as we scale AI-driven asset management from Miami to the world,” Suarez wrote in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Founded in 2012 and led by Rick Gerson, Navroz Udwadia, and Ryan Khoury, Alpha Wave has offices in Miami, New York, London, Abu Dhabi, Tel Aviv, New Delhi, and Sydney.
The same day Suarez revealed his new gig to the world, Judan Financial, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based conglomerate International Holding Company (IHC), announced that it had invested a 50.1 percent stake in Alpha Wave to help launch the company’s AI-native life insurance business.
“This partnership brings together global capital, technology-driven innovation and long-term vision,” Suarez said in a statement. “As Alpha Wave expands its footprint and launches its AI-native insurance platform, the support of Judan Financial strengthens our ability to deliver differentiated solutions to investors and clients across the United States and Beyond.”
After eight years as Miami’s mayor, the term-limited Suarez left office at the end of 2025, succeeded by Eileen Higgins, the city’s first woman mayor. As previously reported by New Times, Suarez transformed his modest taxpayer-funded annual salary of $97,000 into a multimillion-dollar fortune during his time in office, thanks to private consulting gigs, real estate deals, and other private sector roles.
In 2021, Suarez joined the Miami office of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, where he has worked on and off as a private attorney. The firm notably represents the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has been considered a key tool in what some have described as Saudi Arabia’s mission to “sportswash” and “whitewash” its tainted human rights record. Suarez has allegedly developed close ties to the PIF over the years.
Several weeks after he began working for the law firm, Suarez became the senior operating partner at private equity firm Dagrosa Capital Partners. This was also the year that he began investing heavily in making Miami a cryptocurrency hub and launched MiamiCoin (RIP), which eventually became worthless and was suspended in 2023.
Suarez didn’t respond to New Times’ text messages seeking more information about his new role at Alpha Wave.
