“The doors of City Hall are always open to New York’s business leaders,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement on Thursday. But the moguls of the richest city in the world have not always felt that way. Eight months in, Mamdani boasts a robust approval rating, but adversaries in big business still say they’re on the outs with the democratic socialist mayor — in part because he pissed off the city’s richest part-time residents with a video he recorded outside hedge fund titan Ken Griffin’s penthouse to announce his pied-à-terre tax.
To rebuild these ties, Mamdani debuted a 15-member business advisory council on Thursday to create a “stronger, more dynamic economy.” Led by deputy mayor for economic justice Julie Su, it is a dynamic team including New York Liberty CEO Keia Clarke, celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson, and Brandon Blackwood, the fashion designer behind a famous “End Systemic Racism” handbag. “I didn’t inherit a business or come from a traditional finance background,” Blackwood said in a statement. “I built a brand from scratch in New York City with very little capital. I understand what it takes to create jobs.” He said the Mamdani team reached out directly.
There are more traditional names on board: Scott Rechler of real estate private equity firm RXR; tech investor Kevin Ryan; billionaire ally and Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya; Tony James, the former COO of Blackstone; and Robert Wolf, the former CEO of UBS Americas. Wolf told me that “having business people at the table from all different backgrounds” is a strength of the team. “No one knows yet how AI is going to disintermediate the job market and so I think to make it only about financial services would not be fitting to what’s going to make New York thrive,” he said.
