Ken Griffin and Stephen Ross fund $10M campaign to relocate CEOs to Florida's business-friendly environment
Florida business leaders have launched a new national campaign aimed at attracting more CEOs, founders and investors to South Florida, pitching the region as one of the best places in the country to build and scale a company as rising costs and regulatory pressures increase in traditional business hubs.
On Tuesday, the Florida Council of 100 — with the backing of Citadel founder Ken Griffin and Related Companies founder Stephen Ross — announced the "Ambition Accelerated" initiative, which will feature advertising and branding aimed at encouraging decision-makers to build or relocate to South Florida, from West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale to Miami.
"Where you choose to build a business determines how much time is spent driving growth versus navigating bureaucracy," Griffin said in a press release. "Miami and the broader South Florida Gold Coast offer deep talent, regulatory clarity and an extraordinary quality of life. These are not secondary considerations; they are foundations for long-term success, and their impact compounds over time."
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Griffin and Ross contributed a combined $10 million to kick off the campaign. Both are billionaire executives who founded their respective firms in traditional blue-state cities and have openly backed Florida's business-friendly landscape in recent years.
"In previous generations, there were a limited number of American cities where companies could access opportunity and build at scale," Ross also said in the release. "That’s why I began my career building my businesses in those cities. But to me, it’s clear that the next generation of companies belongs along Florida’s Gold Coast from West Palm Beach to Miami."
"This region offers a clear competitive advantage — a strong operating environment, a flourishing innovation ecosystem and public leadership that works constructively with the private sector," he continued. "This combination of factors helps companies based on Florida’s Gold Coast outperform competitors based elsewhere."
The campaign aims to reach business executives through national advertising and direct-comparison messaging in hubs like New York, Chicago, California cities and the greater Northeast. According to the Florida Council, some of the ads may pose questions like, "What if you could scale in the top metro for GDP growth?" or "What if your business could cut utility costs by 30%?"
Florida is widely known for having no state income tax, but the Council also points out that the state has become the second-lowest state for business regulation per capita in the U.S. — and consistently ranks high or at the top nationally for GDP growth, new business formations, talent attraction and higher education systems.
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As the campaign gets underway, interested executives can reach out to the Florida Council of 100 for concierge conversations and relocation or expansion guidance. The Council also said it plans to conduct its own direct outreach to CEOs across America.
"Every CEO is making the same set of decisions right now — where can we hire, where can we operate efficiently, and where can we scale with confidence," President and CEO of the Florida Council of 100 Mike Simas said. "Florida’s Gold Coast is answering those questions better than anywhere in the country, and this campaign is about putting that advantage directly in front of the leaders deciding where to build next."