When Gina Raimondo stepped down as United States Secretary of Commerce on January 20th, 2025, she made herself a promise: take time off, do nothing, and reflect.
“I took about two days,” she admits with a laugh.
After a high-powered career in venture capital and politics, Gina Raimondo has been very mindful about making her next move count. “It’s a new season of life. I’m 54. I’ve been blessed with incredible success. What is it that I want to do? … What brings you joy?”
Pondering A Presidential Run
Gina Raimondo has remained engaged this past year through her work with the Council on Foreign Relations. But she’s also become clear on what she does not want to do next: become a CEO, admitting she’s declined a few such opportunities.
She recently shared on The How She Does It podcast with Karen Finerman, “I don’t want to do something full-time, profit-making. I’d like to run something, but more purpose-driven.”
So, will Gina Raimondo run for President? She is open to it. “I think it’s a job that I would know how to do, and it’s a very hard job to get. Politics is not a meritocracy.” She pauses. “I want to serve the country. I’m a Patriot. I love service, and I’m just going to see how I can serve.”
That said, she is clear-eyed about the obstacles. “It is much harder for a woman,” she states. “When people think of a leader and a President, they want a protector, and it’s just harder for people to get their head around that in the form of a woman.”
Raimondo added, “What I do know is that whoever runs and wins, we have to get behind somebody, whether it’s me or another person who is the most serious, substantive person we can find.”
Raimondo’s Family & Foundation
To understand where Raimondo might go next, it helps to know where she came from. She’s the granddaughter of Italian immigrants. Her parents, Joseph and Josephine Raimondo, raised their family in Smithfield, Rhode Island.
“We were taught to just work relentlessly, to be your best, but to give back and to get ahead and to honor the sacrifices of your relatives who didn’t have the opportunities that you had,” Raimondo recalled.
But the defining moment came when her father, Joseph, lost his job at the Bulova watch factory after 28 years. He was 56 and found himself part of a mass layoff as manufacturing jobs moved to China. “It was more than a job. It was his whole life. It was his confidence, it was his pride,” Raimondo recalls.
That moment shaped her pursuit of financial independence and security. Raimondo became valedictorian, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, and completed Yale Law School. She worked briefly as a lawyer, but felt drawn to the business world. Eventually, she co-founded a venture capital firm in her home state.
From Anger To Action
It was a newspaper article that changed Gina Raimondo’s trajectory. It reported on state budget shortfalls, causing cuts to libraries, bus service, and middle school sports across Rhode Island. Raimondo was outraged. It was her husband, Andy Moffit, who encouraged her to run for public office and help fix the problem.
“So I did,” she recalled, “which was truly crazy. I had zero political background. My family was anti-politics. I had a three-year-old and a five-year-old. I was a partner in a business, like it was craziness. But I did it, and I won.”
Raimondo had launched her political career. She went on to be elected twice as governor of Rhode Island and was tapped by President Biden to run the Commerce Department.
High Visibility & High Pressure
The Commerce Department supports economic growth and development of the U.S. and includes the Census Bureau, the Weather Service, and the Patent and Trademark Office, among others.
Most critically, the job of Commerce Secretary touches on national security. During Raimondo’s tenure, she worked to make sure the U.S wasn’t reliant on semiconductors manufactured in other countries (which the CHIPS Act aimed to address). She also helped enact protections on some advanced American technology in order to maintain a competitive edge.
On another front, Raimondo oversaw export controls on Russia at the start of the war in Ukraine.
“All these decisions were hard,” she recalls. “Should you sell these chips to China or not? How deep should we deny Russia? Like, should we deny them food? Should we deny them medical devices? Should we deny them auto parts? Or should we just deny them spare parts for weapons?”
The pressures and the consequences were high. “It kept me awake every night, but being governor kept me awake every night. I mean, it’s a gigantic job.”
The Best Advice
Raimondo’s advice to women with high-powered careers and a family is pragmatic. “It’s going to be messy. There will be days that everything’s a disaster. So just expect that. Don’t blame yourself.” On guilt and regret: “You literally don’t have time in your life for that. You have to put it in a bag and put it in the trash.”
It was her mother who gave Gina Raimondo the best advice. Josephie Raimondo, who passed away almost three years ago at 91, instilled in her daughter these two words: “Keep going.”
It’s a mantra Raimondo loves. “It’s so wise. If you’re in the middle of the mud, it feels terrible. Go, keep going. Gotta keep going. You’ve got to get to a better place, and you will.”
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