Steve Pagliuca’s career path is strikingly similar to Mitt Romney’s
The similarities between Steve Pagliuca, the new leader of Boston 2024, and his former boss Mitt Romney are starting to get eerie.
Both graduated from Harvard Business School and then took their degrees to Bain & Company. Both then moved over to the offshoot investment firm Bain Capital as executives, amassing considerable wealth while doing so. Both unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate; Romney lost to Ted Kennedy in 1994, and Pagliuca was beaten by Martha Coakley in the Democratic primary for the 2010 special election to replace Kennedy.
And now, with Pagliuca taking over Boston 2024 in an attempt to save the city’s unpopular Olympic bid, he has the chance to add “Olympics turnaround artist’’ to his checklist of Romney-like career moves. Romney, of course, joined the Salt Lake City’s Olympic planning committee in 1999 after a bribery scandal threatened to derail the event. He reorganized and rebooted it to wide praise, relaunching his political career.
Their relationship goes beyond seeming similarities; the two are friends. Romney helped bring Pagliuca over to Bain Capital in the first place back in 1989. Pagliuca donated to Romney in his ‘94 Senate race, an endorsement that hurt Pagliuca when he ran as a Democrat for Senate 15 years later.
“Does anyone think that the Massachusetts Democratic voters are going to elect someone to Ted Kennedy’s seat who opposed him and supported Mitt Romney?’’ Rep. Michael Capuano, a competitor in that 2010 Senate race, said of Pagliuca in 2009. “It is just not going to happen.’’
Pagliuca said at the time those donations were more related to their personal bond than a political statement.
“You know, I donated that money out of friendship,’’ Pagliuca told WBUR. “Mitt Romney hired me, and I worked with him for 15, 16 years. So I didn’t share political views. But Barney Frank has supported Republicans in certain ways, and this for me came out of friendship, not out of politics.’’
Depending on how Boston’s Olympic bid goes, Pagliuca could have quite the feat ahead of him for the next ten years. Harry Strachan, another Bain & Company executive, compared Romney and Pagliuca favorably.
“Knowing Mitt Romney and looking at what he did out in Utah, I have a feeling Steve will be as effective here, although in many ways Boston is going to be tougher to try to get up to speed,’’ Strachan told The Boston Globe. “It’s a difficult city to make things happen in.’’
Indeed, Pagliuca faces challenges of a different kind than Romney did in his Olympic effort. Romney entered an organization that had already locked down the Olympics, and his role was to provide confidence in investors and a heavy dose of restructuring.
Pagliuca, though, has a more political struggle ahead of him. And that starts with winning over a skeptical public ahead of a public referendum next year.
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