TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A well-connected group of Florida business leaders believes its members can help fill a void that opened last year when lawmakers dissolved business recruiting agency Enterprise Florida.
The Florida Council of 100 released a report Wednesday on the types of businesses and industries different areas of the state should work to attract, while offering its more than 150 members to help link businesses with regional economic development organizations.
The report — “Beyond the Sun: Advancing Florida’s World-Class Economy for the Next Generation” — divides Florida into six core regions and three rural opportunity areas. Different industries are identified for each region based on issues such as existing economic groups.
Council of 100 President and CEO Mike Simas said council members can help boost private sector activity as they travel the world.
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“We are never going to be an economic development organization,” Simas said. “Our role is to convene leaders from across the state, particularly private sector thought leaders, to help solve public sector problems.”
The group’s board of directors includes people such as Todd Jones, CEO of Publix Super Markets; Joe York, President of Florida and the Gulf States, AT&T; former U.S. Senator George LeMieux, president of the Gunster law firm; and former state House Speaker Will Weatherford, managing partner of Weatherford Capital. The chairman of the board is former Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy.
“Cost issues and job growth are areas where our members are experts,” Simas said. “They run the businesses in these regions that drive much of this growth. And really, our goal is to help coordinate with the regional economic development organizations that have been doing this work remarkably well for a long time.”
The report includes some common ground in proposals for what different regions of the state should focus on to attract or expand businesses. The coincidence occurs in sectors such as distribution and electronic commerce, aviation and defense, health services and information technologies.
But the report also calls for a focus on specific groups, such as biopharmaceutical fields in South Florida and semiconductor manufacturing in Central Florida.
Simas said the report was already underway before state lawmakers in 2023 dismantled Enterprise Florida, which as a public-private organization helped guide Florida’s economic development. Lawmakers made the decision after years of debate over state incentives for businesses.
About 20 Enterprise Florida employees and more than 20 corporate contracting responsibilities were transferred to the Department of Commerce. The agency’s overseas operations were revamped under the banner of the new nonprofit Select Florida.
In a Council of 100 news release that accompanied the new report, Florida Department of Commerce Secretary Alex Kelly is quoted as saying he “looks forward to partnering with the council.”
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