Five Questions With: Robert Manning

ROBERT MANNING is chairman of Cherrystone Angel Group. / PBN FILE PHOTO/STEPHANIE ALVAREZ EWENS
ROBERT MANNING is chairman of Cherrystone Angel Group. / PBN FILE PHOTO/STEPHANIE ALVAREZ EWENS

Robert Manning is chairman of Cherrystone Angel Group, an angel investment group in Providence. He talks with Providence Business News about what impact a Donald J. Trump presidency might have on the investing and startup community.
PBN: What does a Trump presidency mean for you and Cherrystone?
MANNING:
We believe a Trump presidency will be very pro-business, especially for early stage technology- and bio-science-based companies. President-elect Trump is a very experienced investor, and fully understands the many legal, tax and regulatory hurdles that early stage companies need to overcome in order to grow and prosper. We expect that the Trump White House will be very supportive of the angel, venture capital and private equity communities and will help smooth regulatory barriers, improve incentives and build a more encouraging environment in general for young companies.
PBN: How do you see his presidency negatively and/or positively impacting the investment community?
MANNING:
Donald Trump’s election will have a very positive effect on the investment community. The key will be the implementation of smart, appropriately focused incentives, tax credits and innovation grants that help with the translation of ideas and new technologies into growing young companies. We expect this to be an area of sustained attention by the new administration.
PBN: What does it mean for the overall global, national and Rhode Island economies?
MANNING:
Rhode Island is an integral part of the larger metro Boston investing community, which in turn is one of the most active in the country. We believe we should be able to continue and expand our success in early stage investing with the additional support that should be emerging from Washington.
PBN: How does Cherrystone fit into everything?
MANNING:
What we do as an angel group is help create the companies that create new economy jobs. This is Trump’s central theme, and we therefore anticipate that his policies will be very favorable for us, for Rhode Island and for the New England region.
PBN: Any other thoughts, concerns, optimism you’d like to share regarding the recent election?
MANNING:
We expect that once the noise and divisiveness of the campaign has passed, we will see a very aggressively pro-business, pro-jobs administration emerge in Washington. We have (at least) a two-year window with the president and the Congress in the same hands, and this should allow much to get done on the economic front. So we are quite optimistic about the prospects for the region.

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