Michael Cuzzi is a Senior Vice President with VOX Global. He is a political, communications, and advance veteran of presidential and congressional campaigns. Most recently, Cuzzi served as the Political Director and Deputy State Director for Obama for America in New Hampshire.
As one of the first employees of the Obama campaign both nationally and in New Hampshire, Cuzzi helped build the primary state organization from the ground up: hiring staff and growing the campaign from five to over 105 staffers. Cuzzi built and managed the totality of the campaign political relationships, ranging from state and local elected officials, to party officials, grassroots activists, community leaders, and interest groups across the state. Cuzzi used these relationships to organize and mobilize a statewide political infrastructure to function in support of campaign message and strategy through traditional press events, website features, email blasts, blogs, voter contact, and issue-specific surrogate events.
Prior to Obama for America, Cuzzi was the Campaign Manager for Tom Allen for Congress (ME-01). Cuzzi was charged not only with securing the Congressman’s re-election in 2006, but also preparing the candidate and campaign for a probable (later actual) run for Senate in 2008.
Cuzzi has also served as the Political Director of the Professional Fire Fighters of New Hampshire (IAFF), as well as Advance Lead and Deputy Debate Coordinator for Kerry-Edwards 2004. In the latter role, Cuzzi helped negotiate all production, candidate, staff, and press logistics for the 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential debates along with representatives from Bush-Cheney '04, the Commission on Presidential Debates, and the White House.
Cuzzi has also worked in human resources for Akzo Nobel, a Fortune Global 500 company based in the Netherlands, managing corporate recruitment initiatives for all of Akzo Nobel's North American business units. Prior to that, Cuzzi spent two years in central Maine as an AmeriCorps*VISTA focusing on early childhood literacy projects.
Cuzzi is a graudate of Colby College and lives in Scarborough, Maine with his wife, Heather, and a sheltie named Lupine. When not working, Cuzzi enjoys hiking, snowshoeing, and camping throughout the mountains of New Hampshire and Maine.