Secretary of Commerce Barack Obama Penny Pritzker, ending up worth $2 billion when she served. Donald Trump’s Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, is worth an estimated $600 million. Sample Joe Biden, former Rhode Island manager Gina Raymondo, is in a different league than his predecessor and cost around $10 million.
Still, that’s an impressive number, especially considering where Raimondo started. His father worked in the industry for decades, at a time when Rhode Island was known for its jewelry industry. Eventually, his job, the Bulova watch factory, moved overseas, forcing the older Raimondo to retire in the 1950s. “It was a difficult time for my family,” his daughter recalled during their January candidacy hearing.
Gina Raimondo took the bus to Providence’s Catholic school, La Sale Academy, where she graduated as a doctor and announced future academic success. First, he went to Harvard, then to Oxford as a Rhodes Fellow, then to Yale Law School. In his law degree, he became director of Kimba Wood, a federal judge in southern New York. But Raimondo soon switched fields and chose finance.
He joined a Massachusetts-based company called Village Ventures, building a regional network of venture capital funds. Raimondo remained at work for about three years before returning to Rhode Island to open his shop. In 2002, he started a venture firm called Point Judith Capital, which merged with one of his partners at Village Ventures. Point Judith is a modest team that manages approximately $100 million across two funds.
Gina Raimondo vs. Wilbur Ross
Both trade secretaries work in similar industries – Raimondo in venture capital and Ross in private capital. But Ross is much richer, thanks mainly to the blockbuster steel deals he made in the early 2000s.
According to a confidential presentation by Point Judith released with a request for public records, the investments include a communications tower company called Optasite, a healthcare company called MedOptions, and a Rhode Island brewery known as Narragansett Brewing.
Raimondo partners mainly focus on telecommunications and internet skills while pursuing healthcare companies. According to the presentation, Tudor Investment Corporation, led by billionaire hedge fund Paul Tudor Jones II, is an investor and partner. The two companies have partnered in certain transactions, including a medical device company called Novare Surgical.