In addition to serving as Brunswick’s Healthcare & Life Sciences Sector Manager, he is a member of the firm’s U.S. Public Affairs practice.
Prior to joining Brunswick, Ninio held key communications roles in the Trump administration. Most recently, he served as the Director of Strategic Communications for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a $1.2 trillion federal regulator and the nation’s largest health insurer responsible for administering healthcare programs for more than 140 million Americans. In this role, Ninio served as the principal communications advisor to Administrator Seema Verma and oversaw all external and internal communications activities for the Administrator and the agency’s 16 strategic initiatives.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was detailed to the Office of Vice President Mike Pence to support the White House Coronavirus Task Force with messaging and media strategy and facilitate interagency coordination across the executive branch. Ninio was later detailed to White House Communications to support the rollout of Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership for the development of COVID therapeutics and vaccines.
At the beginning of the administration, he was appointed Assistant White House Press Secretary, in which he served as the primary on-the-record spokesman for the president’s domestic policy agenda and led the rollouts of several initiatives, including healthcare insurance reform, drug pricing, the opioids crisis, workforce development, modernization of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the reestablishment of the National Space Council.
Prior to his time in public service, Ninio held several strategic communications and media relations roles at the Republican National Committee supporting presidential, senatorial, and congressional campaigns as well as the 2016 Republican National Convention and the 2017 Presidential Inauguration. He holds a BA in Political Communication from The George Washington University’s School of Media & Public Affairs.