Kenneth W. Robinson never got to meet him, but he says the late Robert F. Kennedy is responsible for starting him on a successful career path.
“He’s the reason I became interested in politics, and [he] inspired me to choose the career I did,” Robinson wrote in his 40 Under Forty application. “Forty years after his death, he remains remarkably relevant and his speech and actions still inspire me.”
The Brown University grad has played key roles in numerous election campaigns, from field director in Joseph Keefe’s 1996 run for Congress in New Hampshire to manager of the Democratic National Committee’s general election campaign in Florida in 2004.
Now Robinson uses those behind-the-scenes experiences as senior vice president and director of government affairs for Citizens Financial Group Inc. in Providence. He oversees all the government relations operations of the nation’s eighth-largest bank.
Keeping an eye on federal legislation that could affect the banking industry, Robinson builds relationships with powerful people in Washington, D.C.
He runs the Citizens Federal Political Action Committee, while providing guidance to Citizens’ state-level government affairs liaisons.
That doesn’t sound quite as exciting as the role Robinson played in the 2000 presidential recount in Florida.
Robinson was in the thick of things as an organizer for the Al Gore-Joe Lieberman camp, training ballot counters in the West Palm Beach area and co-supervising a staff of 60 “in a highly charged partisan environment,” Robinson’s biography says. •
