Mayfair House Hotel & Garden · September 5, 2025 · an exclusive CREW Miami fireside chat with Ramola Motwani, Chairwoman of Merrimac Ventures, 2024 Horatio Alger Award recipient and Forbes ‘50 Over 50’ honoree, moderated by Wendy Ruiz Cofiño (Vice President, FALKE).
I first met Ramola Motwani in the quiet after a University of Miami panel. A small circle gathered, and she said, “When you educate one person, you educate a generation.” In that instant I knew she was my kind of human, someone who leads with education. In person, she is gracious, humble, and deeply inspiring.
That same spirit filled our CREW Miami fireside chat gathering at Mayfair House Hotel & Garden. A room full of women (and a few men) who build, finance, entitle, lease, sell, and lead sat shoulder-to-shoulder to listen to what carries us through the long, unglamorous middle of any great endeavor: belief in yourself, in the math of the work, in the place you’re building, in your people, and in the time it takes, plus the courage to take the next right step.
Wendy Ruiz Cofiño guided the fireside chat with steady grace; the room leaned in the way we do when wisdom sounds like a friend. And when Ramola spoke, about starting with motels, about the recalled loan and the twenty-sixth yes, about choosing stewardship over splash and putting the ladder back for others, the air changed. We didn’t just hear a story; we were invited into a blueprint.
Opening Gratitude and Empowerment
She began with thanks and a smile: “I’m so proud to be here.” She told us she had driven down from Fort Lauderdale early that morning simply to be with us – “It’s all of you I wanted to connect with and to see the power of women.”
Then she offered the line that set the tone:
They always say women have to be empowered. My favorite is: women are always empowered. Just give them the opportunity, and they stand up – they rise. Ramola Motwani
The room warmed, gratitude first, then a truth we could all feel. Opportunity is oxygen and community opens the door.
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Seven Suitcases, One Horizon
Her story begins with migration and resolve: a family arriving as refugees to a new India “with only seven suitcases in hand,” determined to give their children a future. The lesson wasn’t austerity; it was abundance of spirit. “In spite of adversities, you can be who you want to be.” That posture, equal parts humility and ambition, would travel with her across oceans.
Her parents taught optimism with responsibilities attached, and the habit of giving even when there wasn’t much to spare.
She married young, crossed oceans, and landed in St. Louis, where she and her husband, Ramesh “Bob” Motwani, ran a small import shop and managed apartments. They worked seven days because that is what the dream required. Neighbors noticed. An Italian family on the block insisted they go to the movies, “we only ever see her working.” Ordinary kindness, banked like early capital.
Florida, For Love and For health
The Motwanis didn’t move to Florida chasing a postcard; they came because Bob was living with scleroderma (systemic sclerosis), diagnosed at 34 and had been told he had ten years to live. The climate was the right choice for his health. Oceanfront motels on Fort Lauderdale Beach offered a way forward, and the Motwanis moved quickly. They bought the Merrimac and, in her words, “made sure every room was ready to sell.” And then, almost immediately, the City of Fort Lauderdale turned the page on Spring Break. The season vanished; the corridor went still. “We had only six rooms occupied.”
Most owners cut losses. Ramola cut expenses and rolled up her sleeves. She became head of every department, front desk, housekeeping, back‑of‑house, until competence turned into the kind of confidence no market cycle can take away. Why stay? “It’s oceanfront… a natural resource. It’s not going away.” She believed that time repays those who keep their standards when no one is looking.
Loss a Recalled Loan, and the Ritual of the Twenty-Sixth Knock
Then came the kind of grief that remakes a life. She lost her beloved husband Bob in 1994, just weeks after they closed on a third property, rounding out two acres. Almost immediately, the lender called the loan, giving her three months to refinance or lose everything. She asked for time and got six months, time she intended to earn, day by day.
She built a craftsperson’s loop: meet a banker, listen hard, take notes, revise the deck, and knock on the next door. No two meetings were the same; every no became edits for the next draft, clearer numbers, a tighter story, stronger proof.
Twenty-five banks said no. The twenty-sixth said yes, a loan officer who had watched her work. Years later, over lunch, the bank’s chairman, by then her neighbor, told her he was the one who pushed the approval through. Only afterward did she learn a foreclosure file had been opened mid-fight. Sometimes the distance between almost and afterward is a single, stubborn day.
Education as a Lifelong Tool, Law as a Lifeline
“Education, education and education, any stage, any form.” She didn’t practice law, but legal training became a life raft.
When it was time to entitle a first‑of‑its‑kind five‑star hotel on the beach, she asked the mayor a radical question: do I truly need a land‑use attorney at the hearing? The guidance she took to heart was simple: follow the law, follow the ordinances, stand on your integrity. By the time she presented, the real work had already happened in living rooms, neighbor by neighbor, fear replaced with facts. The vote was unanimous. And she said, with a smile:
There’s always a first time, and we can still be successful.
Conrad, Michael Graves, and a first-of-its-kind vote
The result: a 320-room, five-star hotel entitlement that reshaped a corridor and redefined what persistence could build. Designed by Michael Graves, the project was shovel-ready when “a hundred developers knocked on my door” she said. She did the counter-intuitive thing great leaders do: she sent opportunity outward.
Whenever you help others, you get help yourself.
Stewardship Over Splash
For years, her sons’ “bedrooms” were hotel rooms and the family calendar moved at the speed of check‑ins and turnarounds. She wanted her children to know a steadier rhythm, a real address, a front door that closed on work. When the tide finally turned, she bought a luxury condo. Not as a trophy, but as a promise kept: a home where her sons could live, host friends, and settle. It was the only cash she chose to spend; the rest she rolled into 1031. She calls it setting the table for her children. We might call it stewardship. Merrimac’s footprint grew with the same quiet rigor, hotels, residences, mixed‑use places that lift their blocks as they rise, because success that includes others tends to compound.
Giving Back the Ladder
When Ramola talks about success, the story widens. The measure isn’t just projects delivered; it’s doors held open. For more than two decades, she has helped weave hospitality education into Broward high schools through curriculum support, teacher resources, scholarships, and real pathways to first jobs. In 2019, she formalized that work with the Motwani Academy at Broward College. A bridge from classroom to career: scholarships, internships, and mentors who stay in your corner. Recently, she added a fully funded one-week study-abroad at Les Roches in Switzerland. The results read like postcards from the future: first flights, new friends, real promotions, all proof that when you put the ladder back in place, others climb.
The Inner Voice
“We are always looking for answers from outside,” she told us gently. And asked:
When was the last time you sat with yourself?
Believe in yourself, then act like it.
She didn’t have technology, social media, or a community like CREW Miami to lean on. What she had was a simple practice: belief in herself, a commitment to do the right thing, working with her community, and honoring her team both inside and outside the office. When you move that way, answers have a way of meeting you halfway.
What She’s Proudest Of
Asked about pride, she goes home first:
My greatest joys, my children, my grandchildren.
Then she widens the circle to team and city, to repeat guests who became friends, to neighbors who became partners, to students who became colleagues.
A Legacy That Lights the Way
Ramola Motwani’s journey is more than a success story, it’s a testament to the human spirit’s boundless potential. From refugee roots to reshaping cities and uplifting lives, she embodies resilience that turns dreams into legacies. As she continues giving back through education and mentorship, she reminds us: “There’s nothing we cannot do if we believe in ourselves.” Her story urges us to embrace our challenges, harness our inner power, and create ripples of positive change. Ramola Motwani doesn’t just build buildings; she builds hope.
The Power of the CREW Miami Community
CREW Miami is so much more than a logo on a step‑and‑repeat; it’s a community of members who build, finance, entitle, lease, and lead together. Under President Josie Legido Correa (Director of Business Development at JWR Construction Services, Inc.), the chapter runs on relationships that turn mentorship into sponsorships and friendships and real deals. On stage, Wendy Ruiz Cofiño held a conversation that was both tender and tactical. No wonder we left with full hearts and a concrete to-do list.
The Last Word (for now)
There’s a line that I will be quoting often: “Women are always empowered, just give them the opportunity.” We didn’t just hear Ramola’s story; we were reminded to be somebody’s 26th bank, someone’s first yes, someone’s next door that opens – to look within ourselves for answers, and to keep going, one right step at a time.
With love and admiration,
Zeynep