🔒CERC’s ‘Super Turbo-Charger’

In late July Peter Denious, 52, of Wilton succeeded the retiring Robert Santy as chief executive officer of the Connecticut Economic Resource Center (CERC), the state’s nonprofit business research, recruitment and retention arm. Upon taking office Gov. Ned Lamont in February charged CERC and the state’s Department of Economic & Community Development (DECD) with forming a public-private partnership that confers a leading role on CERC for business recruitment and retention while DECD functions as principal interface between state and local government entities and the private sector.

Denious is a longtime private equity and venture capital professional who most recently was a senior executive with Aberdeen Standard Investments and previously FLAG Capital Management, where he spent most of his career overseeing investments across the U.S. and worldwide.

Denious was graduated from Trinity College and earned an MBA from the Tuck School of Dartmouth College.

What attracted you to this opportunity?

A couple of things. First, the civic orientation of it: I was looking to give back in some capacity, and this fit the bill. Second, I think it’s a tremendous challenge, and I would love to make a difference tying these two thoughts together. Thirdly, what I see is a business-building opportunity with a lot of entrepreneurial elements —as someone who comes from an economic-development background, I come in with eyes wide open, a fresh perspective and energy. The big push is to really work with the administration and the governor to turbo-charge economic development.

Why was this the right move for you now — when you’re right in the middle of your peak earning years?

This [opportunity] came at a very logical point in my professional development and career. I spent 23 years in the private-equity industry. I left my previous employer [Aberdeen Standard Investments] looking for a new challenge and a new direction. I love a good challenge. I am an entrepreneurial business-development person at heart. I think I am a good listener and a good collaborator. I think I’ve got something to offer the state, so I’m going to double down here and give it my best shot. I really hope my team and I can make a difference.

Every administration when it takes office talks a good game about economic development and improving the business climate. What convinced you that Ned Lamont actually meant what he said?

First of all, he’s a business guy. He gets it. I was impressed by how much time he’s spent with the business community in the state. In his first [seven] months he’s been out there talking about CERC and how it can and should be working with DECD. He’s a fan of private-public partnerships and he sees this as a way to bring additional horsepower to the effort. We also have a lot of influential, key business leaders in the state involved in this on the board [of directors]. And that level of commitment has not been seen before and is a big reason I’m in this seat. There’s a lot of interest and genuine effort in turning the tide, so to speak.

If you could reduce the challenge of your new position to one goal, what would it be?

Working to pull together all the constituent parts across the state involved in economic development to grow our state. I think there’s a big effort to reach out and bring into the fold [diverse business voices], not [assume] we have all the answers to all these complicated business questions, and be a gatekeeper for the best ideas to move our state forward.

Before you began in late July did you have an opportunity to sit down with [former PepsiCo CEO] Indra Nooyi and/or [Webster Financial Chairman] Jim Smith to see what the economic-development landscape looked like through their eyes?

I had multiple conversations with the board and with Jim and others who were very involved in the process. It was more of a dialogue, than an ‘interview’ — a real discussion. In the end their biggest question for me was: If you had a blank sheet of paper, how would you think about going about this? I articulated a style and an approach that squared with what they were trying to accomplish and the vision that they saw for this partnership with DECD. So we had a real meeting of the minds.

A lot of people in the business community were surprised to see Jim Smith come on board with this effort and step across the line from business advocate to cheerleader for the new administration.

Jim is deeply committed to Connecticut, and I can’t think of anyone who’s done more to advance the business interests of Connecticut. I’m just thankful he’s in our corner. But you’re touching on the balancing act that we’ll have to do — to be an advocate for the business community, take feedback from the business community and make sure we deliver that feedback in a constructive and thoughtful way back to the Lamont administration. In many ways I think that’s more art than science. But I want to be clear: This is going to be a two-way dialogue. But if we’re going to have businesses in our corner, we have to occupy that middle ground.

The mission of CERC is being recast as less of a marketing arm for DECD and instead playing a more direct role in business retention and recruitment. What exactly will that look like?

We’re not ready to fully verbalize that yet, but I can assure you that it will be very clear. We’re having a very detailed conversation between our respective teams at CERC and DECD so that we come out with one very clear message about the [shared mission moving forward]. But as you might imagine the devil’s in the details and we want to get it right, so we’re going to take a month or two before we really go prime-time on that.

You hadn’t known [new DECD commissioner] David Lehman before you took this job, although you both move in many of the same Fairfield County circles. Now that you’re in the same backfield, what do you make of him so far?

He’s an incredibly thoughtful and business-savvy professional. While we didn’t know each other we were only about one degree separated given our respective backgrounds, so we very quickly found common ground and common threads. He’s pretty committed to the state and he’s working his tail off, and that’s inspiring. We’re all really doubling down here to do a better job — not that it hadn’t been done well in the past, but I call it really turbo-charging the [economic-development] effort — to open it up and get more alignment, more resources, and get after it. At the highest level I think CERC will be the tip of the spear.

Will CERC have a mechanism to directly interface with the people who make the laws in this state? There is a disconnect between the people working to keep companies here and the people who pass laws that drive them out of Connecticut.

There should be — 100 percent. Because [legislators] are obviously stakeholders in this whole undertaking. But I am a pragmatist and a problem-solver, and I am going to find ways to educate and influence [lawmakers] in a thoughtful and constructive way.

Connecticut has become exemplar of the business-hostile state that companies can’t wait to leave.

I’m not sure I agree. But I do know this: We have not achieved full potential in marketing Connecticut and the strengths that we have as a state [to companies outside of Connecticut]. [Under the previous administration] We got complacent, we got back on our heels, we said, ‘We don’t have a lot of big companies — we don’t need big companies.’ We lost sight of some things, and we need to get it back and get some focus and get some passion to address these issues. There’s low-hanging fruit out there [among potential companies to relocate to Connecticut] if we can go and tell a better story. But we just haven’t done it — haven’t done it in any kind of constructive or super-aggressive way. What are logical companies to set up shop in Connecticut if they’re not here already? We haven’t really thought about that programmatically or aggressive or constructively. That’s what I’m here to do.