President & CEO
Phone: 561.324.0725
Kelly Smallridge has spent her career making the case for Palm Beach County, and winning it. As President and CEO of the Business Development Board, the county’s official economic development organization, she leads the team responsible for recruiting, retaining, and expanding the companies that power one of Florida’s fastest-growing economies. Over the past five years alone, that work has produced 11,622 jobs created or retained and more than $1 billion in capital investment.
Kelly joined the BDB in 1988 and led its recruitment, retention, and expansion efforts for 16 years before being named President and CEO in 2004, becoming the first woman to lead a South Florida economic development board. Today she is the longest-tenured economic development president in the state, guiding one of only nine accredited economic development organizations in Florida.
Her fingerprints are on many of the county’s defining economic wins. She helped land two of the world’s largest bioscience institutions, The Scripps Research Institute and the Max Planck Society, and has led job-creation projects for Amazon, Pratt & Whitney, Carrier, D-Wave Quantum, and Sikorsky. Her “Wall Street South” initiative helped draw more than 250 financial services firms to the county, and the tools she built along the way, including an expedited permitting ordinance adopted by 15 municipalities and a countywide Shovel Ready program, changed how Palm Beach County competes for business.
The industry has taken notice. A sought-after voice on Florida’s economy, Kelly has appeared on Fox News and Bloomberg and has been featured in Bloomberg, among other national media outlets. Kelly was named Florida’s Economic Developer of the Year in 2022, received the Governor’s Ambassador Medal in 2013, and has appeared on Florida Trend’s list of the state’s 500 most influential business leaders for a decade. She serves on the boards of the International Economic Development Council, SelectFlorida, and the Southern Economic Development Council, and is a past chair of the Florida Economic Development Council.
A proud graduate of Palm Beach County public schools and the University of Florida, where she was inducted into the Academy of Golden Gators, Kelly is as invested in the community as she is in its economy. She serves on several boards including Education Foundation of Palm Beach County, the Homeless Coalition, and the South Florida Fair. Kelly lives in Wellington with her husband, Rex, and is the mother of three sons.
