Despite appearing on television almost every day for a few years in a variety of different roles, no one really dug into her (A- list celebrity) personal life.

As she embarks on what will be a federal political career rather than a state political career, she should be much more discreet about that affair she is having.

Gina Raimondo
American politician and venture capitalist who has been the 75th governor of Rhode Island since 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, she is the first woman to serve as Governor of Rhode Island.

Biden picked an ex-VC to run Commerce. Her ties to tech might be too close

Rhode Island governor Gina Raimondo, the Biden administration’s nominee for Commerce Secretary, once worked as a venture capitalist and has been friendly with the tech world. These affinities are seen by some in Washington as strengths, and others as liabilities. Either way, they’re bound to shape the way she runs the Department of Commerce.

Raimondo, who was shortlisted to be Biden’s VP, was cofounder of a venture capital fund called Point Judith Capital backed by Bain Capital before she became treasurer, and then governor, of Rhode Island. Last November, Fast Company‘s Innovation Festival featured a conversation between Raimondo and AOL founder Steve Case on how to build the next Silicon Valley.

When confronted by the pandemic, Governor Raimondo turned to Big Tech–specifically Salesforce–to replace legacy systems with new cloud solutions for contact tracing and case investigations as well as workforce retraining and other initiatives aimed at keeping Rhode Islanders working. Raimondo called Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and explained Rhode Island’s problems to him, the story goes. He had people on the ground in the state the following Monday.

Actually, Raimondo and Salesforce ended up building something new that Salesforce is now selling to private sector companies faced with the challenge of dealing with the pandemic and getting employees back to work. It’s a platform and a series of employee apps called Work.com designed to help maintain contact and trust between employers and employers during the pandemic and beyond. The platform also provides wellness services, collaboration spaces, and IT support for mobile devices.

If confirmed, Raimondo will take the reins at Commerce in a period of flux. During the pandemic, businesses of all kinds hurried to make themselves into ecommerce businesses, if they weren’t before. That migration by businesses has pushed the development of the infrastructure needed to tightly integrate online businesses and payment systems and credit card systems, explains Daniel Elman, an IT analyst at the consulting firm Nucleus. – Source

RI ends investment in Raimondo’s old venture-capital firm

PROVIDENCE — Just days before Gov. Gina Raimondo’s nomination to a Cabinet post in Washington, the state pension fund ended a long-expired $5-million, 10-year investment in a venture-capital firm that Raimondo co-founded.

The state is now out. The City of Providence is still in.

It is not yet clear why the state, and not the city, was able to extricate itself from Point Judith Capital after paying the firm $1,134,375 in management fees only and logging an average annual return of 5.11%.

Point Judith was the investment firm that Raimondo, who is awaiting confirmation as President-elect Joseph Biden’s commerce secretary, ran before winning office, first as state treasurer and then as governor.

The firm has since moved to Boston and rebranded itself as PJC, but Raimondo’s photo is still displayed on its website as “General Partner Emerita.”

The state had been locked into its agreement with Point Judith since 2007. – Source

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