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Courtney Cunningham is the President of the Cunningham Group, Inc., a public involvement and strategic communications firm. Mr. Cunningham has had a long career in law, government, and strategic communications making him one of the most experienced and knowledgeable consultants in Florida.
He has consistently served as an intermediary to address the interests of all stakeholders while seeking formal approval of projects ranging from transportation, environmental mitigation, and residential and commercial development. Each of these projects required public outreach, public hearings and public government votes. He has also worked with clients to amend public laws to facilitate the construction of public infrastructure.
Before establishing The Cunningham Group, Mr. Cunningham worked as Chief of Staff in the Office of the Chairperson of the Miami-Dade County Commission. In that position, he served as top political and legislative advisor to the Chairperson and as a liaison to the Office of the Mayor.
Before joining the Office of the Chairperson, Cunningham was an officer and investment banker with a top Wall Street firm. He counted many states and municipalities as his clients and served as senior investment banker for Miami-Dade County. This experience gave Mr. Cunningham direct experience in infrastructure finance and the underlying credit needed to bring a project from conception to closing.
Mr. Cunningham has also served as Director of Government Relations with Ryder System Inc., a Fortune 250 transportation and logistics company. In that position, he managed state government relations for the company. He also managed and coordinated the rental industry response to the Oklahoma City bombing where a Ryder truck was used. That tragedy lead to the introduction of legislation around the country to highly regulate rental transactions. Mr. Cunningham joined Ryder after working with the company in legislative affairs at the American Trucking Association, a Washington advocacy group focusing on transportation and highway issues.
Prior to moving to Florida, Mr. Cunningham served in the Administration of President George Bush. In the beginning of the Administration, Mr. Cunningham served as Deputy Chief Counsel at the Republican National Committee where he directed outside law firms handling litigation for the national party. He subsequently moved over to the Department of Labor as a Senior Legislative Officer where he represented the Administration on Capitol Hill on all labor legislation.
Mr. Cunningham is active in both civic and government affairs. Governor Jeb Bush named him to his transition team where he led the transition for the Florida Department of Labor and Transportation. In late 1997, he was nominated by former Florida House Speaker Dan Webster and appointed by Governor Lawton Chiles to the Florida Elections Commission. Governor Bush reappointed him in 2000. He is a Fellow of the British-American Project, which is sponsored by the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. In February 2005, the Board of Governors appointed Mr. Cunningham to the University of Florida Board of Trustees. In 2006, he was named Chairman of the External Relations Committee where oversaw the university’s communications, marketing and government relations. Mr. Cunningham was also the National Fundraising Chairman for the Conference of Minority Transportation Offcials (COMTO) in 2005, 2006 and 2007. COMTO set fundraising records in each of those years.
