The Partnership for Rhode Island, the new nonprofit with a stated goal of boosting economic development in the state, has hired New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s campaign finance director, Tom Giordano, as its executive director, RIPR has learned.
Girodano is expected to start in his new role this week.
The Partnership for Rhode Island filed incorporation papers with the state in December. The initial officers of the nonprofit include the CEOs of Hasbro, Brian Goldner; CVS Health, Larry Merlo; and the Rhode Island Foundation, Neil Steinberg; as well as IGT Global Chairman Don Sweitzer.
In January 2016, the Brookings Institution recommended creating a new non-partisan entity to enhance the state’s capacity for business-led civic engagement. Brookings was responding to a request by Governor Gina Raimondo to help the state develop a strategy for economic growth.
A Providence College grad with an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business, Giordano said in a 2012 interview that his goal was always to work at the intersection of politics and business.
“Very few people understand them both,” Giordano said. “Few CEOs know who their congresspeople are, and too few politicians understand who their local business leaders are, or how the Dow did yesterday.”
At the time, Giordano was serving as managing director of the 2014 campaign for Cuomo, the son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo. In the interview, Giordano said he started on his path in DC, working for the fundraising consulting firm Berger Strategies, and made his connection with Cuomo since he was among the firm’s clients.
Cuomo is considered a possible presidential candidate in 2020, and had banked $20 million for his re-election campaign as of last month.
Giordano told his interviewer he’d be working in the commissioner’s office of Major League Baseball if he wasn’t in politics. He also said in the 2012 interview that in five years he expected to be as a senior VP of business development at a private firm.
