Ricardo Rossello

Early life

Ricardo Rossello was born in March 1979 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is the son of Pedro Rossello, former Governor of Puerto Rico (1993-2000), and Maga Nevares. He attended high school at Marista College in Guaynabo, during which time he was selected to represent Puerto Rico in the International Mathematical Olympiads. 

Rossello was a four-time Puerto Rico junior tennis champion. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), graduating in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, biomedical engineering and economics. He was captain of MIT’s tennis team. He received a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Michigan. He completed post-doc research in Neuroscience at Duke University, focusing on reprogramming stem cells and the vocal learning pathway.  

Career

After his post-doc research at Duke, Ricardo Rossello pursued an academic career as a scientist and tenure-tracked professor. In 2012, He took a position as Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator at the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus, where, in addition to teaching courses in Immunology, Biochemistry, Physical Chemistry, and Thermodynamics, he focused on reprogramming cancer stem cells and generating disease models for neurological diseases. 

In 2014, Dr. Rossello took a position at Ana G. Mendez University as an Assistant Professor and Director of Special Projects, where he continued to focus on methods for reprogramming cancer stem cells. 

While working as a scientist and professor, Dr. Rossello also wrote biweekly columns for the newspaper El Vocero, where he advocated for statehood for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. He began a project called Plan for Puerto Rico, where he laid out a scientific approach to solving the root cause problems of the island. Based on this Plan, Rossello was elected President of the New Progressive Party in 2016, created to champion statehood for Puerto Rico and enact reforms. Rossello won election to the Governor’s office in November 2016 and was inaugurated the following January, becoming the youngest Governor in the U.S. and its territories at the age of 39, and also the only Governor with a Ph.D.

Governor Rossello immediately enacted a series of ambitious reforms aimed at reducing the size of government and eliminating fiscal corruption. Just nine months into his term, Hurricane Maria struck the island, devastating the infrastructure and taking the lives of nearly 3,000 citizens. Governor Rossello oversaw relief efforts and became an internationally known public official through his fraught negotiations for emergency funds with the administration of President Donald Trump.  He was able to secure the largest grant ever for recovery in Puerto Rico, after bipartisan negotiations, which included over 19.9 Billion dollars in CDBG Disaster releaf funds.  

Rossello led the largest municipal restructuring in the history of the US and had the lowest unemployment rates in the history of Puerto Rico. He succeeded in reducing the size of government by 20% and brought the first year of economic growth in more than a decade. He became a champion of aggressive efforts to mitigate climate change on the island, committing to 100% renewable energy by 2050, enacting reforestation and coral reef protection efforts, and focusing on capacity building to respond to more extreme natural disasters. His economic reforms provided protections for marginalized and underserved populations, and his social reforms solidified support for women and LGBT individuals and couples. 

Rossello currently serves as CVO of The Regenerative Medicine Institute, offering cutting-edge research into longevity and cellular aging. He is an adjunct professor at George Mason University, teaching classes on crisis leadership and the difficulties of enacting sweeping reforms. He became the first-ever directly nominated public official in Puerto Rico’s history when he was elected to the inaugural class of the Puerto Rico Congressional Delegation. 

Rossello is a member of the Triple 9 Society, Helliq Society, Mensa International, and 4sigma Society. He is also a member of YPO, a global network of chief executives. 

Rossello has published two books: Un Mejor Puerto Rico es Posible in 2012; and The Reformer’s Dilemma and the Need for a Radical Middle, published June 2024, in which he examines his experiences as Governor through a critical lens to explore the challenges to reforms. The book received significant press attention amid the Presidential election due to Governor Rossello’s description of his time with President Trump following Hurricane Maria. Rossello related a scene in Marine One in which, while flying over the devastation, the President commented that nature has a way of coming back. “Well, it does until it does not. Who knows with nuclear warfare what will happen? But I tell you what. If nuclear war happens, we won’t be second in line pressing the button.” Rossello appeared on several news programs discussing the incident and his concept of the “Radical Middle”, in which the waves of political extremism that paralyze nations could be calmed by recognizing commonalities among citizens rather than allowing the media to profit from exacerbating political divisions.  

He has been married to Beatriz Areizaga Rossello since 2012. The couple have two children, Claudia Beatriz and Pedro Javier. 

Net Worth

Unknown