Miami Dade College, Amerant team up on training

Amerant Bank’s Apprenticeship Program and Immersive Internship Program with Miami Dade College (MDC) take flight as their first hires joined this year.

“The recruiting period started in February, and then we had our first hire in April,” said Kristy Amaro, the chief diversity and inclusion officer, head of education at Amerant Bank. “And then, the other two [hires] trickled throughout the year.”

Amerant Bank’s partnership with MDC began over 20 years ago with the Center for Financial Training (CFT) International, said Ms. Amaro. Amerant Bank has over 600 team members and typically hires 75 to 100 positions on any given year.

“They [CFT International] have been supporting our team members for years on credit training on all of the banking skills you can think of for a commercial lender for a retail banking center,” said Ms. Amaro. “Really, this idea for an apprenticeship or what we call an immersive internship … came through a conversation with CFT … a partner in Miami Dade and it started with an apprenticeship program. The apprenticeship program that we’re hosting is for a retail banking specialist, and that individual basically works in a banking center for one year.”

Last year, Amerant Bank began its digital transformation unit and was looking for new talent. The Immersive Internship Program began to develop.

“Miami Dade has a School of Engineering, Technology and Design, and it’s really within that program we wanted to start to find some early career talent that can feed into our digital transformation program,” said Ms. Amaro. “… Antonio Delgado is the vice president of innovation and technology partnerships [at MDC] … we had a conversation.”

The conversation centered on Amerant’s search for talent as well as its interest in partnering with MDC to give students an opportunity. The Immersive Internship Program was adjusted before its final state.

Initially, the concept was a 12-week summer internship, said Ms. Amaro. However, the program was adjusted to the students of MDC, as most are working students looking for long-term jobs.

The immersive internship supports the digital transformation team and currently has two interns but will max out at five. Similarly, the apprenticeship program has one apprentice. Amerant bank is currently targeting to obtain two apprentices in total and would max out at five. After the one-year apprenticeship comes to an end, the apprentice automatically becomes a full-time employee. However, the immersive internship differs in this aspect.

“The immersive internship, it’s a one year agreement of employment, and then we’ll assess the talent at the end,” said Ms. Amaro. “We’ll do consideration for a full time offer … it’s based on performance.”

The program will continue to grow as Amerant is one of the first banks to participate. CFT International hopes to expand the program to more banks.

“Actually [Amerant Bank] … has been the pioneers to start it [the apprenticeship program],” said Connie Laguna, the president & CEO at the Center for Financial Training International at MDC. “We’ve actually been using them as kind of our testimonial because, although we have other banks in the process, they’re one of the first ones that went through the whole process and have already hired an apprentice and actually are in the process of hiring a second one.”

Miami’s location and the economic role it plays in the community impacted MDC’s conversation of an apprenticeship program as it aimed to fill talent needs in the community.

“The reason why we entered into this partnership, and we thank Amerant Bank for their commitment, is that … our students will gain essential hands-on experience,” said Pamela Fuertes, the dean at Miguel B. Fernandez Family School of Global Business, Trade and Transportation at MDC. “I really think that in the world of banking and finance, given Miami-Dade County’s, Miami’s role as … [a] financial banking leader, these opportunities are so important and so unique for our students.”

“We at Miami Dade College,” she said, “very much value the partnership and value the alignment that we have with our courses and meeting the talent needs of the community.”

In addition to the two programs broadening opportunities for students, the partnership between Amerant Bank and MDC has allowed for a communication line to be established.

“What we would really love, as this relationship grows, is just to fill our talent pipeline, with the banking center with … students that are coming from this program,” said Ms. Amaro. “We [Amerant Bank] have seen a lot of success with these early career talents. They are engaged, they are committed, they add value, they bring new ideas. For us, a great way to just keep that talent pipeline going is through these programs, and the apprenticeship and the immersive internship has definitely proven that we can get talent into the bank.”