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Greg Ruggiero relocated to Florida six years ago, and fell in love with St. Petersburg. His dream was to work in sports, so when he moved down, he networked his way to a position selling season tickets with the Tampa Bay Rays.
Five years ago, he decided to leave the sports industry and start working with Bouchard Insurance, going after “more of a career than a job.”
This month, he’s taking the next big leap in his career, relocating to Sarasota to help grow and manage the Sarasota area for the firm as a sales executive. “I was looking to move up … and this opportunity opened for me,” Ruggiero says.
Since moving to St. Petersburg, Ruggiero has become active with the community. He is leadership co-chair of St. Pete Young Professionals, leading roundtable Q&As with CEOS, politicians and other influential people. “I’m the moderator, so I get to feel like Jimmy Fallon for a bit,” Ruggiero says. He’s also participated in Leadership Pinellas.
Ruggiero has worked with a lot of nonprofit organizations to set up insurance programs, like setting up health insurance for PARC in St. Petersburg, which assists individuals with developmental disabilities.
When Ruggiero moves to Sarasota, he will take over for a Bouchard sales team, previously led by Keith Mercier, that has grown that region’s book of business to $6 million.
Ruggiero’s goal is to get involved in the Sarasota community right away. Persistence is a key trait to success in sales, he says. “You’re going to be told, ‘no,’ one, two, three times in a row. It’s that fourth, fifth or sixth time that if you are persistent, it will eventually be the right time” for that client, he adds.
— Traci McMillan Beach
Name: Greg Ruggiero
Age: 28
City of residence: St. Petersburg (for now), relocating to Sarasota for 10/1
Twitter handle: @GregRuggiero
Employer: Bouchard Insurance
Title: Sales Executive
Birthplace: Brooklyn/Staten Island, NY
Years on the Gulf Coast: 6
Marital status/children: Girlfriend/No Children
Alma mater: St. John’s University
Best place to network: Sports Leagues
Coolest business experience: Working in the Front Office for the Tampa Bay Rays
Messy desk or clean workspace: Clean workspace
Best business lesson ever learned: Persistence leads to timing and timing is everything
A website that makes your job easier: Salesforce.com
Community group you’re most involved with: St. Pete Young Professionals
Favorite off-hours activity: Concerts/Live Music/Music Festivals
Two people, dead or alive, you’d like to have dinner with: Derek Jeter & Martin Scorsese & Mark Cuban
What you would be doing if you could pick another career: General Manager of the New York Yankees
Top item on your bucket list: South African Safari
Skill you’d like to learn: Learn to play Bass Guitar
Who would play you in a movie about your life: Vince Vaughn
If I had a magic wand I’d: I would make children’s education more practical to today’s world
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