Fernando Figueredo PhD

Dr. Fernando Figueredo is a distinguished and highly respected professional with extensive experience in academia, corporate communications, international travel and research of historical figures, especially those related to Christianity. His personal passion for years has been the early history of Christianity, which led him to establish History Travel Tours (HTT), a company that conducts tours and pilgrimages focused on historical elements and early Christianity.

While completing his doctoral studies at the University of Seville in Spain, Dr. Figueredo became intrigued with the amazing history of Spain, which goes back over 5,000 years. In particular, he became very interested in the period of time when Spain was under Roman rule, from the years 200-BC to 400-AD.

Known at the time as Hispania, Christianity flourished in Hispania to a very advanced level by the year 300 AD, with a number of historical facts that position this region of the then Roman Empire as being critically important in the evolution of early Christian tenets, beliefs, and norms.

It all started when in Seville, finishing his doctoral studies, Dr. Figueredo’s wife planned a last minute, short weekend trip to the nearby city of Ecija, between Seville and Cordoba. To their surprise, in his homily the priest mentioned the missionary trip to Ecija by the Apostle Paul during his trip to Hispania, back between the years 64-66 AD. Dr. Figueredo and his wife were both stunned by the mention of St. Paul having been in Hispania since both were devout Catholics and very knowledgeable of early Christian history.

Dr. Figueredo then became intrigued with the possibility that Paul had been in Hispania and that launched a ten-year research project that has led the writing of this book.

It should be noted that Dr. Figueredo has had a very successful career in Academia as well as Corporate Communications. He most recently held a series of important executive administrative as well as teaching positions at Florida International University (FIU), the fourth largest university in student enrollment in 2019, with around 60,000 students. Ranked as a top-100 public university in the U.S., FIU is also ranked No.1 in students of Hispanic heritage with 65% of the student body with such heritage, and top-10 in total minorities. FIU also has a large international faculty and student body, representing over 135 countries.

Dr. Figueredo’s professional career advanced through an increasingly important number of corporate positions after graduation from the Univer­sity of Florida with a BS in Industrial Engineering. He rose to a position as Region Director of Corporate and External Affairs with Bell South-Florida, then to a Region Director of Consumer Communications for AT&T Latin America. He was then named Vice President of Corporate Communications for Lucent Technologies Latin America, when Lucent was divested from AT&T. He later became a partner in a top-5 Global Public Relations firm, Porter Novelli. Because Dr. Figueredo was highly respected as a communications professional, who was also considered to have no “political baggage,” he was chosen in 2011 by the then Mayor of Miami Dade County to serve as the Director of Communications and External Affairs for Miami-Dade County, a position he held with distinction for three years before returning to FIU.

Dr. Figueredo holds a Ph.D. in Mass Communications from the Univer­sity of Seville in Spain. He also holds a master’s degree in business administration from Florida International University with emphasis on marketing communications and a BS degree in industrial engineering from the University of Florida. He has attended numerous senior level management seminars at prestigious institutions such as The London Business School, Babson University, Georgetown University, and the University of Pennsylvania.