Jennifer Rominiecki Amongst Florida’s Most Influential Business Leaders

October 30, 2024 | Sarasota

For a second consecutive year, Florida Trend Magazine has named president and CEO Jennifer Rominiecki to the Florida 500, a list of Florida’s most influential business leaders representing 500 candidates across major industries. The editors of Florida Trend selected the executives after conducting hundreds of interviews and months of research, culminating in a highly selective biographical guide to the leaders of Florida.

                Since joining Selby Gardens in 2015, Rominiecki has been a visionary, bringing twenty years of experience at major New York City cultural institutions. After arriving, she repositioned the institution as The Living Museum®, enacting a new operating model that has yielded increases of 170% in membership and 141% in overall earned revenues. Rominiecki has also overseen the creation and execution of a five-year Strategic Plan, a new three-year Strategic Plan, as well as an innovative Master Site Plan for which more than $57 million has been raised. Phase One of the Master Site Plan opened to the public in January 2024, creating the first net positive energy botanical garden complex in the world.

                In May 2020, she oversaw the adoption of Historic Spanish Point as a companion campus to Selby Gardens’ Downtown Sarasota location to form one organization with two bayfront sanctuaries connecting people to air plants of the world, native nature, and regional history.

                Rominiecki is the former Chair of the Board of VISIT FLORIDA. She currently serves on the Boards of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County, the Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition, the Science and Environment Council of Southwest Florida, as well as the Southeast Advisory Council of Lafayette College. 

                During Rominiecki’s tenure, she and Selby Gardens have received numerous awards. Most recently, Selby Gardens was selected for TIME’s annual list of the “World’s Greatest Places” for 2024. In addition, Visit Sarasota named Rominiecki the “2024 Voice of Sarasota”; the Business and Professional Women of North Sarasota named Rominiecki a Woman of the Year for 2024; and the Climate Adaptation Center named Rominiecki a Climate Champion and presented her with a 2024 Climate Champion Beacon Award. The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce named Selby Gardens the Woman Led Business of the Year in 2021 and the Small Business of the Year in 2019.  In 2019, Rominiecki was named a Businesswoman of the Year Honoree by Tampa Bay Business Journal. In 2017, she was honored with the AJC Civic Achievement Award and the Leadership Award for Arts Management from the Arts and Cultural Alliance of Sarasota County. She has also received SRQ Magazine’s Women in Business “Hear Me Roar”. Leadership Award in 2016.

                Rominiecki stated, “I am truly honored to be named to Florida Trend magazine’s Florida 500 list of business leaders for a second year. This acknowledgment celebrates not just individual efforts, but the unwavering dedication of our board, team members, and volunteers whose passion and commitment breathe life into our botanical garden. Together, we cultivate not just plants, but a vibrant community that nurtures nature’s beauty and inspires generations to come.”

The complete Florida 500 list can be found at https://floridatrend500.com.

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