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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is bringing 15 business leaders into City Hall as he looks to mend a rocky relationship between his administration and some of the city’s most powerful executives.
Mamdani announced Thursday morning the launch of a new Business Advisory Council spanning finance, real estate, health care, technology, sports and retail, an effort to bring some of New York’s most prominent business leaders to the table with a democratic socialist mayor whose economic agenda has often put him at odds with the business community. Its members include Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya, Etsy CEO Kruti Patel Goyal, RXR chairman and CEO Scott Rechler and New York Liberty CEO Keia Clarke.
Taking a closer look, one might notice some of the biggest names in New York business are notably absent. The council includes no current executives from JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, American Express or BlackRock, nor from tech giants Meta or Alphabet.
Last year, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon told Fortune that he would offer to help Mamdani if he became mayor, while also describing his movement as “more Marxist than socialist.”
City Hall approached at least three prominent business leaders who ultimately did not join: Bank of America’s New York City president Jose Tavarez, former American Express CEO Ken Chenault and private equity executive Charles Phillips, according to the New York Times.
A Bank of America spokeswoman declined to comment to the Times, while Chenault and Phillips did not respond to the newspaper’s requests for comment. Fortune has reached out to all three for comment, along with JPMorgan.
A spokesman for Mamdani told the New York Times he could not discuss individual conversations with prospective members but said there were several reasons some executives did not end up on the council. Some could not accommodate the time commitment, others did not receive clearance from their companies and some were concerned about the amount of media attention surrounding the group.
The council will meet quarterly with Mamdani and Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su and advise City Hall on industries including finance, technology, real estate, entertainment and health care, as well as infrastructure, the city’s talent pipeline and regulatory environment, the mayor’s office said in the statement Thursday.
“The doors of City Hall are always open to New York’s business leaders, and I look forward to welcoming their experience and strategic guidance as we build a stronger, more dynamic economy,” Mamdani said.
The council represents Mamdani’s latest attempt to establish a working relationship with a business community that has been wary of his economic agenda. The makeup of the group shows some success: 15 executives agreed to join, including leaders in real estate, finance, tech and health care. But the absence of current executives from several of the city’s largest financial and technology companies underscores the divide that remains.
The decision over whether to join had become a point of debate on Wall Street, with some executives weighing the opportunity to influence policies affecting their businesses against concerns that participation could be seen as an endorsement of policies they oppose, according to the Times.
Mamdani campaigned on an ambitious affordability agenda that included freezing rents for stabilized apartments and making city buses free, while proposing higher taxes on corporations and wealthy New Yorkers to help pay for his plans.
Still, several major figures from New York business have agreed to work with him. The full 15-member council includes:
- Brandon Blackwood, CEO of Brandon Blackwood New York
- Priscilla Sims Brown, president and CEO of Amalgamated Bank
- Rafael Cestero, CEO of the Community Preservation Corporation
- Keia Clarke, CEO of the New York Liberty
- John D’Angelo, president and CEO of Northwell Health
- Kruti Patel Goyal, CEO of Etsy
- Tony James, chairman of Jefferson River Capital
- Scott Rechler, chairman and CEO of RXR
- Kevin Ryan, founder and CEO of AlleyCorp
- Marcus Samuelsson, chef and restaurateur
- Doug Steiner, chairman of Steiner Studios
- Hamdi Ulukaya, founder and CEO of Chobani
- Pat Wang, president and CEO of Healthfirst
- Antonio Weiss, partner at SSW and former Treasury official
- Robert Wolf, CEO of 32 Advisors and former chairman and CEO of UBS Americas
And while some of Wall Street’s biggest current executives are missing, the council includes several veterans of major financial institutions. James is the former president and chief operating officer of Blackstone, Wolf previously served as chairman and CEO of UBS Americas, and Weiss previously headed investment banking at Lazard.
Some members joining the council have not always agreed with Mamdani. Rechler, for example, recently told the Times that he had directly raised concerns with the mayor over his rhetoric on Israel, but said he believed it was important to engage with leaders even when they disagree. In Thursday’s announcement, Rechler said he has found Mamdani and his team to be “constructive and responsive partners” since the mayor took office and said he plans to provide “candid input” through the council.
“The biggest challenges we face cannot be solved by business or government alone,” Ulukaya said in the announcement. “They require us to come together, listen to one another and work with a shared sense of purpose.”
The council launches as New York City employment sits near a record high. The city had 4.85 million jobs as of July, according to figures cited by the Mamdani administration, while the unemployment rate stood at 5%.
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