Nelson: Raimondo ‘nailing it’ in pitching R.I. to business leaders

PROVIDENCE EQUITY PARTNERS founder and CEO Jonathan M. Nelson, Gov. Gina M. Raimondo, center, and Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce President Laurie White talk about Rhode Island's business climate, its improving standing among the states and entrepreneurship during the chamber's annual meeting, held Monday evening. / COURTESY ERICK BROWN PHOTOGRAPHY LLC
PROVIDENCE EQUITY PARTNERS founder and CEO Jonathan M. Nelson, Gov. Gina M. Raimondo, center, and Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce President Laurie White talk about Rhode Island's business climate, its improving standing among the states and entrepreneurship during the chamber's annual meeting, held Monday evening. / COURTESY ERICK BROWN PHOTOGRAPHY LLC

PROVIDENCE – Before an audience of more than 700 Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce members, Providence Equity Partners LLC founder and CEO Jonathan M. Nelson provided outside validation that Gov. Gina M. Raimondo’s personal efforts on behalf of the Ocean State are having an effect.
The occasion was the chamber’s annual meeting, held at the R.I. Convention Center on Nov. 21. Nelson was joined by Raimondo at the end of the evening for a question-and-answer session moderated by Chamber President Laurie White.
Questions for the private equity pioneer and the governor, Rhode Island natives both, ranged from supporting entrepreneurship and identifying the most persuasive arguments to be made for locating a business in Rhode Island to identifying which industries might fit best with Rhode Island’s workforce and business climate.
When asked by White what arguments he would make to business leaders across the nation in order to have them invest in the Ocean State, Nelson said the governor “is nailing it.” Nelson said he was hearing that assessment from CEOs across the United States, which is one reason he gave for Providence being able to convince General Electric Co. to locate a major piece of its GE Digital venture here when the company decided that it did not want to invest more in Connecticut.
He noted that doing the right things in Rhode Island to address business climate issues and create targeted incentive programs puts the state in a position to “take advantage of others’ misfires,” such as Connecticut being unable to tackle its fiscal challenges.
“What [business leaders] are really looking for is predictability and stability” over the long haul, he said, a theme that Raimondo underscored when she said her approach is to look for “20-year solutions” to the pressing issues of the day, including deteriorating infrastructure, Medicare costs, tax structure and public employee pensions.
“This country is awash in capital, and it’s searching for a home,” Nelson said. And in that home, business leaders want “a climate they can rely on. … Business leaders want to limit risk and it has to be stable for more than one governor.”
When asked by White which industries would be a good fit for Rhode Island, Nelson said finance, his own. He noted that Providence Equity employs more than 100 back-office workers in Rhode Island, and given Providence’s proximity to the finance centers of New York and Boston, there is no reason other companies could not take the same approach. But he added that the state should be less focused on specific industries. Think rather, he said, of the business climate. “You must be opportunistic and lucky. … I think it’s a tough road to pick an industry,” although he did say that with the Block Island wind energy project set to go operational, there may be an opportunity to get to the front of the line in that sector.
Nelson recently gave $25 million to Brown University, his alma mater, to set up a center for entrepreneurship there. What surprised him was the fact that “it didn’t already exist.”
“Students at Brown are risk takers and independent thinkers,” he said. And the institution is really good at interdisciplinary work, which he said is where innovations occur. “If we can help students there succeed, if we can tilt the field in their favor, we all win.”
Other points Nelson made during the discussion included:

  • Entrepreneurship is opportunistic
  • Since the average life of companies founded now is shrinking, if you aren’t creating a climate to start new businesses, you are shrinking
  • The workforce must be trained for the jobs of the future, not of the past
  • Even if you have a good entrepreneurial idea, “it’s hard,” so you have to have persistence
  • The United States “is the best market in the world,” so to compete, Rhode Island must stand out among the U.S. states by concentrating on what it does best, not on copying other states’ approaches
  • The business community must take a more active role in advancing good policy in government, especially policies for the long term

In addition to the discussion, White and Chamber Chairman William F. Hatfield, the market president for Bank of America Corp., ran through chamber initiatives and how the organization was going about supporting business in public policy as well as private investment.

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