Crain's New York Business, October 21, 2024

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Finding an anchor tenant in a shaky of ce market is keeping the nal tower of the World Trade Center redevelopment from getting off the ground | By Eddie

Silverstein Properties’ redevelopment of the World Trade Center site has been by and large a success story. Yes, the Lower Manhattan o ce market is struggling in the wake of the pandemic, but in the past two decades the developer has still managed to transform a desolate location of almost unfathomable heartbreak into a campus of well-regarded skyscrapers

hosting many blue-chip tenants.

e glaring missing piece in this is 2 World Trade Center, the nal o ce tower in the complex that Silverstein Properties has yet to begin construction on after multiple false starts. e developer will not begin work on the project until it secures an anchor tenant, and although it has gotten close to doing so several times,

Small

it has yet to close a deal.

Sources familiar with the site pointed to multiple reasons why erecting this particular tower has been such a challenge, including the current state of the city’s o ce market, the relative lack of subsidies for its construction and the massive size

Eric Adams’ fundraising lags after indictment

Some donors are sitting on the sidelines for now

By Nick Garber

In the wake of his indictment, Mayor Eric Adams has raised much less money for his re-election campaign — and, more alarmingly for him, he has seen a parallel drop-o in donations to his legal defense fund despite mounting attorneys’ fees, according to disclosures released last week.

Adams’ 2025 re-election campaign raised about $190,000 between July 12 and Oct. 7, his campaign revealed in an Oct. 15 ling. at total trails one of his rivals, City Comptroller Brad Lander, who brought in $315,000. e three other declared candidates — Scott Stringer, Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos — raised a respective $180,000, $138,000 and $53,000. (Ramos only launched her bid in September, and all four candidates expect to receive matching funds that will narrow their gap with Adams.)

Mayor Eric Adams raised just $190,000 for his re-election since July, but he maintains a wide lead in the money race.

Adams’ campaign fundraising slowed considerably starting in early September,

GOTHAM GIG Journalist becomes an ER nurse to take a different pulse of the city.

Fundraising for Mayor Eric Adams’ re-election campaign has slowed. | MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE

Silverstein Properties has largely been successful in its efforts to redevelop Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks but has yet to start construction on 2 World Trade Center, which is proposed for this site in Lower Manhattan. | BUCK ENNIS

Larry Silverstein has shown few signs of slowing down in pursuit of 2 World Trade Center development.

Council members call out Adams administration for not implementing vacant apartment law

By Eddie Small

The Adams administration is dragging its feet on implementing a housing vacancy law that went into effect months ago, say members of the City Council.

The City Council passed the bill, known as Local Law 1 of 2024, late last year. It requires landlords to keep empty apartments in good shape and gives New Yorkers the option to call 311 to report any issues or hazardous conditions in them, according to the office of Councilwoman Carlina Rivera, who co-sponsored the bill with Councilwoman Gale Brewer.

The law required the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to create the 311 reporting option by Aug. 3, but the agency still has not done so, Rivera’s office said. The two reasons

few instances, then it won’t cost much to inspect them,” she told Crain’s. “We don’t know how many there are. That’s why we want very much to have 311 take the calls, because then we would know at least some data.”

Budgetary needs

The City Council also put out a fiscal impact statement late last year estimating the cost of implementing the law at $150,000 annually, so the Adams administration should have been aware of its budgetary needs, according to Rivera’s office.

Vacant apartments have emerged as a contentious issue as the city grapples with a severe housing shortage, although the specific number of empty ones remains extremely hard to pin down.

The bill “would divert critical resources away from HPD’s enforcement while not creating any measurable increase in supply of safe and affordable housing.”

HPD has given for not implementing the law yet are that it does not have the money and does not think vacant apartments are a particularly big problem, Brewer said. She noted that these explanations are somewhat contradictory.

“If you think that there are very

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Landlords have faced accusations of “warehousing” some of their units, or purposefully not putting them on the market in hopes of getting higher rents at a later date, although they have strongly pushed back on this claim.

HPD opposed the bill while the council was considering it. Assistant Commissioner Lucy Joffe said at a June 2023 hearing that vacant apartments are usually not hazardous and are only empty because the owner is preparing to put them back on the market.

The bill “would divert critical resources away from HPD’s enforcement while not creating any mea-

surable increase in supply of safe and affordable housing,” she said in her testimony.

Nevertheless, HPD spokeswoman Natasha Kersey said in a Oct. 15 statement that the agency is “actively working” to implement the law. Doing so will require technology upgrades and system adjustments, and the agency is using its existing tools to keep tenants safe in the meantime, she said.

The latest statistics from HPD’s New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey found that the city’s housing vacancy rate was just 1.4%, its lowest in more than 50 years. The survey, which came out early this year and was taken from January through mid-June of 2023, also

found that there were roughly 33,000 available apartments to rent throughout the city and there were about 230,000 empty units unavailable to rent.

Rivera and Brewer held a rally this month to demand the Adams administration fully implement Local Law 1. Brewer said she has not seen any indications yet from HPD that the agency is moving to actually do this, but she will keep pushing for it regardless.

“If it’s a law, we need to find the funding,” she said.

This is not the only housing controversy the embattled Adams administration is facing in the City Council. It is also in a legal battle over Mayor Eric Adams’ refusal to

implement an expansion of the city’s housing voucher program for low-income individuals that the council passed over his veto last year.

And the administration’s proposed City of Yes reforms, which aim to significantly increase New York’s housing supply, are nearing the finish line but could face major changes in the City Council, particularly as the multiple investigations into the Adams administration have dramatically weakened its leverage. Speaker Adrienne Adams has said the council will propose its own housing action plan alongside City of Yes that will include tenant protections and more funding for city agencies like HPD.

Moinian Group parts with Midtown building

By Julianne Cuba

One of the country’s most prolific developers has offloaded a Midtown property for just over $10 million, according to a deed that appeared in the city register Oct. 10.

The Moinian Group, headquartered in Columbus Circle, sold 236 W. 54th St. for $10.5 million, records show, as part of a rather unusual deal for a firm that’s typically focused on development from the ground up.

Founder Joseph Moinian signed the deed transfer himself. The firm did not respond to a request for comment about why it parted ways with a comparatively small part of its otherwise massive portfolio.

Boston-themed sports bar

The Moinian Group, headquartered in Columbus Circle, sold 236 W. 54th St. for $10.5 million.

The buyer of the 2-story building between Broadway and Eighth Avenue — which for more than a decade has been occupied by Boston-themed sports bar the Three Monkeys and a comedy club, Sheba’s Speakeasy, on the second floor — is a Flushing-based limited liability company named after the address. Kevin Kerveng Tung, an attorney who appears to have represented the buyer, did not return a request for comment.

It’s unclear what the buyer has in store for the Midtown property; attempts to reach the LLC were unsuccessful. But the Red Soxaligned pub closed its doors this month as a result of the sale, according to a post on Instagram. It plans to open in a new location. It’s not clear whether the comedy club is also closed or has plans to move. Owner and comedian Sheba Mason did not return a request for comment.

Founded in 1982 by Joseph Moinian, the Moinian Group has amassed a portfolio that includes more than 20 million square feet of real estate across every type of asset throughout the country.

One of its high-profile developments includes the Sky, a 71-story luxury rental building at 605 W. 42nd St., where a one-bedroom is currently listed for $5,175, according to its website.

Lucy Joffe, assistant commissioner for Housing Policy, at June 2023 hearing

Council members Gale Brewer and Carlina Rivera at a rally for their vacant apartment law GERARDO ROMO/NYC COUNCIL MEDIA UNIt

Albert Pulido Jeanette Wing

Owner of Fifth Avenue tower says he’s unable to secure mortgage refinancing

the 59-story landmarked building is 20% vacant, and the $200 million loan is due in December

By Aaron Elstein

Moises Cosío Espinosa, an art collector who owns more than 700 contemporary works by Mexican and foreign artists, may have to part with an exemplary Art Deco.

The object in question is 500 Fifth Ave., a 59-story tower at the corner of 42nd Street designed by Shreve Lamb & Harmon, the architects who drew up the Empire State Building. The 700,000 square-foot tower was landmarked by the city in 2010, 14 years after it was acquired for $132 million by Cosío, who is described by his attorneys at law firm Quinn Emanuel as “one of the wealthiest individuals in Mexico.”

Today, however, a fifth of 500 Fifth isn’t leased. Its $200 million mortgage comes due in December. And Cosío can’t seem to secure a new loan.

“The borrower has informed the special servicer that they are unable to secure refinancing,” credit-rating firm KBRA said in a

report Oct. 11.

If Cosío can’t find a new mortgage, 500 Fifth would be in default and the institutional investors who own the loan could seize the property. Cosío’s fortunes could change if mortgage rates fall. But since short-term interest rates were cut 50 basis points by the Fed last month, long-term rates have unhelpfully risen by 50 basis points. At 500 Fifth, tenants tend to be on the smaller side. The largest, publisher W.W. Norton, leases 100,000 square feet. But most take 30,000 or less, KBRA data show. The Empire State Building also had many small tenants before the Malkin family spent $550 million on renovations and its cramped, dark office warrens were replaced with sleek space for LinkedIn and Coty.

The tower’s value has fallen in half since 2014 to about $300 million, KBRA estimated.

Funding a fix-up doesn’t appear to be an issue for Cosío, whose grandfather coowned two of Mexico’s biggest banks, according to Bloomberg News. But he may have concluded it doesn’t make sense to invest millions making 500 Fifth’s interiors more like the Empire State Building’s. His tower’s value has fallen in half since 2014 to about $300 million, KBRA estimated. Cosío extracted about $75 million in cash from the property when Credit Suisse refinanced its mortgage 10 years ago.

Emails to Cosío’s art foundation, Fundacion M, weren’t returned.  Cosío bought 500 Fifth Ave. in 1996 from General Electric and a group of Japanese investors who had taken over the property in the bankruptcy of New York

investor Joseph Neumann. The building joins the list of struggling landmarked towers that includes the Chrysler Building and the Helmsley Building. Cosío invested around $20 million in improvements after acquiring the building, but inspectors from KBRA weren’t especially impressed and in 2014 observed interiors “vary in quality from average to good.”

Cosío’s other businesses

Cosío was 14 when his father died but it took three years of fighting his uncle in court before he could collect his inheritance, Bloomberg News said. He has produced films, built a pro basketball team in Mexico City, and invested in a Mexican ride-hailing app. He has also amassed a collection that is “an accurate, reliable, and broad overview” of contemporary Mexican art, according to the website for his foundation, which supports artists and art education.

Global insurance executive unloads High Line condominium for about what he paid for it

three-bedroom, nearly 3,000-square-foot unit at the Zaha Hadid building traded for $7.8 million

By C. J. Hughes

Aglobal insurance executive has left the High Line.

Mike Wells, a former CEO of British financial giant Prudential PLC, has sold his three-bedroom unit at 520 W. 28th St. for $7.8 million, according to a deed that appeared in the city register on Oct. 9. In 2022 Wells paid $7.5 million for the nearly 3,000-square-foot home at the metallic and curvy, spaceship-evoking condo designed by the late Zaha Hadid, the register shows, and so just avoided breaking even on the deal.

LLC. And Josh Cohen, the attorney with the Midtown-based law firm Cohen & Cohen who handled the transaction on their behalf, declined to comment on the deal.

$7.8M

With three and a half baths, two balconies and motorized shades to perhaps block prying eyes from High Line passersby, plus the windshield-esque windows the condo is known for, Wells’ unit was first listed in June 2023 for $8.1 million, according to StreetEasy.

In 2022 Mike Wells, a former CEO of British financial giant Prudential PLC, paid $7.5 million for the nearly 3,000-square-foot home.

The buyer, who shielded their identity using a shell company, was listed on the deed as Zaha 33

An employee of Prudential since 1995 (the company is not affiliated with the New Jersey-based insurer of the same name), Wells rose through the ranks to become chief executive, a position he held from 2015 to 2022, during which he spun off Jackson Financial, a U.S.-focused retirement services firm, as its own publicly traded company.

His accomplishments also included opening up markets in Africa to Prudential PLC’s services,

according to a biography. Since stepping down from Prudential, Wells has worked as CEO of Athora, a Netherlands-based retirement firm.

An 11-story, 40-unit building sheathed in stainless steel that looms over the popular High Line park in West Chelsea, 520 W. 28th earned its developer The Related Cos. a haul of $392 million in sales, according to its most recent offering plan. But British architect Hadid died in 2016 before the

completion of the building, her first and only residential project in New York.

Resales have been rare in the condo building, which opened in 2017, though a two-bedroom hit the market last month for $3.9 million.

An email sent to Athora was not

returned by press time. And Steve Gold, the Corcoran Group agent who brokered the deal for Wells, had no comment.

Wharton Properties buys West Village multifamily building for about $15.4 million from Pinnacle Group

By Eddie Small

An apartment building in the West Village has been sold by one real estate billionaire to another.

Jeff Sutton’s Wharton Properties has purchased 241 W. 13th St. from Joel Wiener’s Pinnacle Group for about $15.4 million, property records show. Wiener appears to have owned the building since at least 1996, according to the city register.

The property stands 6 stories tall with 31 units, none of which are available, according to StreetEasy. Apartments this year have rented for between $3,450 for a one-bedroom and $5,000 for a two-bedroom, the site says.

A Rosewood Realty Team of Ben Khakshoor, Aaron Jungreis and Alex Fuchs represented the buyer and the seller in the deal. Pinnacle opted to sell because it had a loan on the building coming due, and Wharton is planning to renovate the building and all of its free-market apartments to increase the rent roll and the value of the building, Khakshoor said. The property was built more than

a century ago in 1904, and 75% of its units are free-market, according to Khakshoor and the commercial real estate database CoStar.

Representatives for Wharton and Pinnacle did not respond to re-

quests for comment by press time.

High-profile retail holdings

Wharton is based in Midtown and run by father-and-son team Jeff and Joseph Sutton. The firm

has long been known for its high-profile retail holdings along Fifth Avenue but has lately been selling off these properties. It most notably sold two sites along the famed thoroughfare to Prada for $822 million and one storefront to

The Jeff Sutton-led firm has purchased 241 W. 13th St., according to property records.

Kering, the parent company of Gucci, for $963 million.

The West Village deal fits nicely with the type of smaller purchases the company now seems focused on. These include buying 373 Broome St. in Little Italy for $12.8 million in August and 14-16 Bedford St. in Greenwich Village for $13.5 million last year. Wharton has since renovated the Bedford Street property. Wiener’s Pinnacle Group, meanwhile, manages tens of thousands of apartments throughout the city and has been a somewhat controversial landlord over the years. Wiener has faced claims of harassing and overcharging tenants and paid $1 million to 300 rent-stabilized tenants in 2006 as part of a legal settlement.

three-bedroom

at 520 W. 28th St.

520 W. 28th St., West Chelsea, and (inset) a balcony | CORCORAN GROUP

DocGo’s computer systems were hacked in May

By Aaron Elstein

Hackers “accessed and acquired” con dential information from DocGo, a medical-services company that has a $432 million no-bid emergency contract from the Adams administration to provide migrant services.

e breach took place in May at the Midtown-based company’s ambulance division. A “limited number” of health care records were taken, including “certain protected health information,” DocGo said in a securities  ling, and law enforcement was noti ed. e breach hasn’t been widely reported.

A “limited number” of health care records were taken, including “certain protected health information.”

DocGo, in a securities  ling

DocGo spokesman omas Meara said the hack shouldn’t be considered unusual, citing a recent study showing 92% of health care companies have experienced a systems breach this year.

In May 2023 the city Depart-

ment of Housing Preservation & Development awarded DocGo a contract to provide shelter, food and other services to migrants, according to the city comptroller’s o ce. After news articles described understa ed hotels and de cient housing, the city said in April that DocGo’s contract wouldn’t be renewed when it expired the following month.

Zero-dollar extension

e contract wasn’t renewed, but was granted a zero-dollar extension through December, the comptroller’s o ce said in an August report. An audit by the o ce found “serious issues” with HPD’s oversight and said the agency approved “unallowable” expenses that lack proper documentation. HPD disagreed that certain expenses were unallowable. In a move described by DocGo as separate, on Oct. 1 its third board chairman in six months took the helm.  Steven Katz, who replaced founder Stanley Vashovsky as chairman in April, stepped o the board for “personal reasons” and was succeeded by a newly appointed director, Stephen Klasko.

is a venture-capital executive and former president of omas Je erson University in Philadelphia. DocGo spokesman Meara said Klasko “brings a wealth of experience in transforming health care systems,” was named Ernst & Young’s Greater Philadelphia Entrepreneur of the Year in 2018, and was cited in Becker’s Healthcare Review “Great Leaders in Healthcare” in each of the last three years.

Meara added neither Katz’s resignation nor Klasko’s appointment were “in any way connected” to the hack.

Publicly traded DocGo’s stock trades for $3.20 a share and has a $325 million market capitalization. It went public at $10 a share in 2020 after merging into a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. DocGo posted $10 million in second-quarter operating income this year on $165 mil-

lion in revenue, up from $125 million in revenue for the year-earlier period. In addition to providing ambulance and asylum services the company also is in telehealth.

“We are seeing a lot of momentum working through the sales pipeline,” CEO Lee Bienstock said on an August conference call. Winding down its contract with the city of New York, he said, “has freed up considerable bandwidth to pursue other opportunities.”

Klasko

A trio of DocGo-branded vehicles | DOCGO VIA TWITTER

Letitia James could be the front-runner in a bid for mayor’s seat — if she decides to run

The attorney general could win support from Black working-class voters and professional-class liberals

The Letitia James for mayor rumor mill is kicking into high gear.

e state attorney general, who successfully sued the Trump Organization for nancial fraud, is reportedly weighing whether to enter the growing mayoral eld. James is most likely to run if Eric Adams resigns. Adams, who has been indicted on corruption charges and denies all wrongdoing, is holding on for now. His challengers are left to wonder whether they’ll be competing in a special election or facing him in a Democratic primary next June.

A special election would probably entice Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor, into the race, and that could in turn draw James, who has emerged as the politician Cuomo hates most.

a mayoral race, has deep political roots in New York City. She served as a city councilwoman and as the public advocate.

James, like Williams and Adams, is a product of the outer-borough Black working class. She has strong relationships with the city and state’s most in uential labor unions and is the rare politician who has credibility with both the business establishment and the progressive left. If Williams ran for mayor, his challenge would be convincing moderates he could manage the city.

If James runs, she might have the best chance to win — greater than Cuomo or Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (who would become acting mayor if Adams steps down) and the various challengers running already, including City Comptroller Brad Lander and his predecessor, Scott Stringer. James has won citywide and statewide already and, most importantly for

James’ relatively successful tenure as attorney general isn’t necessarily preparation for an executive role, but it’s one with tangible power and authority. James’ investigation into Cuomo’s masking of the Covid death toll in nursing homes was well-received. And it was her investigation of sexual harassment claims against Cuomo that triggered his resignation.

James would be potent because she has the potential to appeal to at least two major Democratic constituencies: Black working-class voters and professional-class liberals. ese upwardly mobile, college-educated voters make up an

ever greater share of the city electorate and they are deeply opposed to Adams. Many of Adams’ challengers are chasing them already.

James’ anti-Trump bona des will go far with this group. At the same time, she’s well-known in the central Brooklyn neighborhoods she once represented and could campaign e ectively in vote-rich southeast Queens, where the city’s Black middle class still resides.

A past weakness

Her traditional weakness has been raising money. After Cuomo resigned in 2021, James explored running for governor against Kathy Hochul, who replaced Cuomo immediately. For a moment, it appeared James would be a serious threat to win as a charismatic Brooklyn-based politician taking on a little-known ex-lieutenant governor from Bu alo.

But Hochul out anked James by rapidly raising far more money. She aggressively locked up Cuomo’s old donors — the real estate developers, nanciers and labor bosses — and ensured James couldn’t compete. James didn’t have the grassroots fundraising base to make up for all the cash Hochul hoovered up.

e good news for James in any hypothetical mayoral campaign is the availability of public matching funds. Unlike the state, which very recently instituted a matching funds system for the rst time, the city program can boost those who don’t have great fundraising prowess. James will still have to hustle to raise her millions but she won’t be vastly outspent by the competition if she quali es for matching funds.

Given her name recognition — and the buzz she’d generate as potentially the city’s rst female mayor — hitting that quali cation

threshold should be doable. Will she run, though, is another question entirely. Much will depend on whether Adams resigns. If he hangs around long enough to avoid a special election — and forces the eld to take him on in a Democratic primary — James could decide the campaign isn’t worth it. Her decision could also hinge on Cuomo’s.

If the governor she helped take down gets in the race, she might have no choice but to join him.

Ross Barkan is a journalist and author in New York City.

Mayor launches police-involved outreach teams to connect subway homeless with housing, medical care

By Amanda D’Ambrosio

e city has deployed new outreach teams to address homelessness on the subways, Mayor Eric Adams o cially announced Oct. 10, and in doing so is doubling down on its joint reliance on police o cers and clinicians to connect people with housing and medical care.

e initiative — known as Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness, or PATH — relies on teams of homeless outreach workers, nurses and police o cers to canvass the subways overnight and connect unhoused individuals to medical services and shelter. e teams, which are active only in Manhattan, are sta ed by the Department of Homeless Services, New York City Health + Hospitals and the Police Department. Although the teams have been in operation for two months, they had not been made public until this month’s announcement.

e teams were designed to address public safety concerns within the subway system, Adams said

at a press conference Oct. 10.

“It’s imperative that New York City remains not only the safest big city in America, but the safest city in America,” Adams said. “ e subway system must lead the way.”

Address the parallel crises

e PATH teams are part of the city’s increasing reliance on “co-response” models — which involve both police o cers and mental health clinicians — to address the parallel crises of homelessness and severe mental illness. O cials say involving police o cers in mental health response improves safety and allows clinicians to more effectively do their jobs. But disability rights and homeless advocates say such approaches increase risks of violence and perpetuate stigmas about the perceived dangers of those who are mentally ill.

Despite criticisms of its police-centric approach, city o cials have pledged to expand such co-response teams. Since their ofcial launch in August, PATH teams have made contact with

more than 1,500 unhoused individuals on the subways and connected 500 people to services including housing, meals and medical assistance.

e teams are a supplement to a $20 million subway outreach initiative launched in March by Gov. Kathy Hochul that also relies on police o cers. e Subway Co-Response Outreach Teams, or SCOUT program, pairs law enforcement with behavioral health clinicians to enroll people into medical services. Hochul has promised to expand the outreach model to 10 teams citywide by the end of this year.

ough Hochul’s initiative sends teams to canvass the subways during the day, the new PATH teams ll the gaps by conducting their outreach overnight. PATH teams also o er broader services to address homelessness, while SCOUT is focused on addressing mental illness, said William Fowler, a spokesman for City Hall. But as police presence in the subways ramps up, advocates have raised concerns about whether law

enforcement agents are the best type of responders to connect homeless individuals with adequate resources.

David Gi en, executive director of the advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless, said, “What is effectively another NYPD-led outreach program does nothing to provide the housing, low-barrier shelter beds and quality voluntary

mental health care that individuals sleeping in the transit system want and need.

“If Mayor Adams were serious about the issue,” Gi en continued, “he would be focused on addressing the needs of the thousands of New Yorkers who have been left out in the cold because of the city’s failure to provide enough housing and mental health care.”

Ross Barkan

Letitia James’ past fundraising troubles are a warning sign, but matching funds would give a boost to her potential New York City mayoral campaign. | BUCK ENNIS

Mayor Eric Adams announced a new outreach program Oct. 10 that sends police of cers and clinicians to address homelessness on the subways. | MAYORAL

Adams names new deputy mayor for public safety, replacing Banks

By Nick Garber

Mayor Eric Adams named a longtime law enforcement official as the city’s new deputy mayor for public safety, filling a vacancy left by the Oct. 7 resignation of his close ally Philip Banks.

Adams’ choice of Chauncey Parker, who previously served as an assistant to Banks, is the latest instance of the mayor replacing a loyalist with an experienced government official in the wake of his indictment. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the power to remove Adams from office, has publicly and

“Chauncey is the best person for the job. A lifelong public servant, spent his career working on all levels of government, building bridges — what we believe is needed now.”

Eric Adams,

privately pressured Adams to clean house in City Hall, resulting in the departures of several high-level officials who were swept up in recent federal raids.

A former state and federal prosecutor, Parker has served since the 1990s as executive director of a federal grant program aimed at combating drug trafficking in the New York area. He was also commissioner of the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services and recently worked as a deputy commissioner for collaborative policing at the NYPD.

“Chauncey is the best person for the job,” Adams said during a City Hall press conference. “A lifelong public servant, spent his career working on all levels of government, building bridges — what we believe is needed now.”

After nearly 40 years

Parker said he was “excited and grateful” to take on the job after nearly 40 years working in criminal justice. He said he will focus on curbing gun violence, improving emergency response times and developing anticrime programs through the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.

It had not been immediately clear whether Adams would hire a new person for the role, because he created the job of deputy mayor for public safety specifically for Banks following his election in 2021. But Adams, eager to project a sense of stability, said Oct. 15 that he had received interest in the job from nine candidates.

It is unclear whether Parker will have the same clout in the role as Banks, who had been described as a shadow police commissioner given his huge influence over the

NYPD. Banks’ power is said to have helped fuel the departure of Adams’ first police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, who reportedly felt marginalized by his influence. Banks, a former chief of department at the NYPD, abruptly left the department in 2016 when he was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a bribery case. Banks was not charged but allegedly accepted gifts, including foreign travel and expensive meals, from the businessmen, prosecutors said.

Still, Adams, who had known Banks and his family for years, named him to the senior City Hall job over warnings from ethics experts.

Hochul, speaking to reporters on Oct. 14, suggested she was satisfied with Adams’ house-cleaning moves.

“I had asked him to work to bring in new blood, and new blood to help stabilize the city, calm it all down, and he’s doing that,” Hochul said.

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Chauncey Parker (center) was named by Mayor Eric Adams as deputy mayor for public safety on Oct. 15. Mona Suazo (left) was named assistant deputy mayor. | eD reeD/MAYOrAL PHOtOGrAPHY OFFIce

Campaign Finance Board’s review process is working, just too slowly

Since Mayor Eric Adams was accused of bene ting from straw donors, or people who illegally use someone else’s money to make a political contribution, in nancing his run for the mayor’s seat, some have questioned whether city elections need sweeping campaignnance reform.

A closer look suggests the system is working — just too slowly. And the right technology could change that.

e use of straw donors makes it easier for candidates to take advantage of the city’s public matching funds program, which provides $8 for every $1 donated by a New York City resident, up to $250. e goal of the program is to keep candidates from nancing their campaigns solely through special interests and the mega wealthy.

e fact that Adams was singled out can be seen as proof that the auditing system works. e Campaign Finance Board, which oversees campaign contributions, agged the same alleged straw donors as the FBI, the way the board is intended to work. Whether or not the mayor is found guilty of perpetrating a scheme, the Cam-

Creating

paign Finance Board upheld its duties.

Where the Campaign Finance Board could use some adjustment, however, is in its speed.

e board has not yet nished its audit of the last election. e mayor’s indictments in the alleged straw-donor scheme were handed down mere weeks ago. But in the meantime, Adams has been collecting donations for his re-election bid. Reinvent Albany notes the system’s slowness can seem to voters like inaction and incompetence, eroding public con dence. Any delays are actually a result of the board’s thoroughness while using technology that could use an upgrade.

e Campaign Finance Board’s new executive director, Paul Seamus Ryan, said in June testimony before the City Council’s

a culture of

work

from home, not alone

Amazon has shaken up the postCOVID work environment, announcing to employees that beginning in 2025, all workers must be back in the o ce ve days a week. It’s a bold declaration by a major American employer that o ce culture is not dead, but it’s a choice that may end up hurting the tech giant in the long run. Companies that get remote and hybrid work culture right are opened up to a world of key bene ts — and perhaps a better workforce as well.  Amazon is hardly alone in their desire to undo the remote work culture norm created by the pandemic. In recent years, even companies that were all in on remote work policies have changed their tunes.

e issue is that these policies have been remarkably popular; employees have shown they’re willing to quit or leave a job when work from home policies change.

companies that want to attract the best talent need to get smart about how they build a company culture that thrives, whether in-person or online. Remote work increases exibility, decreases commuting, and improves work-life balance for employees, while helping employers access a more diverse talent pool and lower overhead costs.

When it comes to attracting top talent, a Gallup study found that 54% of employees would consider switching jobs for more exibility. As for retaining talent, the 2023 Reimagined Workplace Survey revealed that remote and hybrid work options signi cantly boost retention rates.

Companies with healthy, fully remote cultures are succeeding in this space with intentionality. at’s not an accident.

It all starts from the top with a few actions:

Intentional communication

governmental operations committee that the board is looking into technology solutions — such as signature comparison software — that might enhance the auditing process. It is also seeking legislation that would allow it to contact contributors by email and phone, instead of just by mail.

Such enhancements must remain a priority so that voters maintain con dence in a system that is otherwise working.

Involved in the election process

On its website, the board says the matching funds program makes candidates accountable to city residents because they have to truly engage with New Yorkers to win their dollars. It helps the average New Yorker feel more involved in the election process, and it allows more candidates from di erent walks of life to enter races.

Unfortunately, there will likely always be candidates trying to game the system. But just as we don’t get rid of banks because there always will be bank robbers, we shouldn’t seek to overcorrect a board that is doing its work — albeit slowly.

To maintain the public’s trust in the process as well as in the candidates it is funding, the board must work to improve the speed of its audits. And the City Council should prioritize lending a hand in any way it can.

what’s working, what’s not, and make adjustments accordingly. e key is having the right culture, platforms and tools in place for collaboration and innovation. is makes it easier to break down digital barriers.

Don’t blur the boundaries

e truth is, with continued low unemployment and a whole new generation of employees entering the workforce — many of whose lives were indelibly shaped by remote schoolwork —

Leaders and managers should set the tone, clearly communicate their vision, and actively bring employees into the fold — which includes understanding

While remote work can give employees the exibility they crave, it can also make it harder to set boundaries between work and personal life. Companies building remote cultures need to be intentional about respecting boundaries, communicating clearly, encouraging breaks, and promoting mental health. Adequate time o , mental health days, and clear work-life separation help keep employees from burning out.

Reinforce what works

Whether you’re an employee or a manager, the only way to create a culture that works is by being open and honest about what’s effective — and what isn’t. Employees need to be encouraged in the behavior that creates effective remote work, and employers, on the other hand, need to be told what doesn’t work.

The traditional management playbook is out the window. Companies have the opportunity to write a new one. And those willing to lead with the vision, adaptability and commitment to build a strong remote culture can position their organizations — and their workforce — to come out on top in a digital world.

Mayor Eric Adams ED REED/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE

Gayle Jennings O’Byrne is the founder and CEO of Wocstar Capital, a venture capital rm focused on investing in tech companies with diverse and underrepresented management teams.

Remote work increases and improves work-life balance for employees, while helping employers access a more diverse talent pool, writes Gayle Jennings-O’Byrne, founder and CEO of Wocstart Capital. | BLOOMBERG

PERSONAL VIEW

Here are three solutions to reimagine congestion pricing and lower the toll

Caroline Spivack’s piece on congestion pricing in the September 23 issue provided the best clarification I’ve seen of the difficult road ahead for the governor in her effort to change the currently approved congestion pricing plan. And with the ruling that the lawsuits to overrule the governor’s delay can go forward, the legal obstacles are significant. Legally she may not have a leg to stand on.

Politically the governor is not wrong. She rightfully sensed the mood of constituents as the implementation of the plan got closer. As the plan was being hatched in Albany over five years ago, the public hadn’t really paid much attention to it. This spring when its reality was obvious, the political, economic and emotional pushback began in earnest with lawsuits filed to stop its implementation. As of this point, none of those have been successful. But my guess is if she hadn’t done that, the pushback in the next election could have led to the removal of the plan.

The governor has suggested a very reasonable approach to implementing the plan by reducing

PERSONAL VIEW

the toll substantially. That would likely appease a majority of those people objecting yet still keep the congestion pricing ball rolling. But as Spivack’s piece adroitly points out, this would require new legislation and if the new charge was below $9 (something I’ve recommended), it would require a whole new review process. Is that worth doing? My opinion, yes.

Lucius J. Riccio, Ph.D. P.E., is a former New York City Department of Transportation commissioner and former MTA board member. He is an adjunct professor at NYU’s

Stern School of Business and Partner in Gedeon Engineering.

First, let’s get something straight at the outset. The MTA needs billions. It needs far more than even the original congestion pricing plan will provide. It needs the money just to keep the subways, commuter rails and the bus systems at anything close to a state of good repair and functioning adequately to keep New York the number one city in the world. So, anyone who is against congestion pricing because they think the MTA has too much money now or that fares are too high is nuts. Does the MTA always spend their money wisely? Well, that’s another matter. But billions are needed. When you add in new subways, something which is absolutely needed, the need only skyrockets.

Second, what is the purpose of

congestion pricing? Is it just about raising money for the MTA? Is it about saving the remaining driving commuters time by reducing traffic? Is it part of a plan to improve the environment? These are all good things that should be pursued, but of course they can all be approached by other perhaps better ways.

First, raise the gasoline tax a dime a year for five years in New York City and a nickel a year for five years in the MTA counties outside of the city. (Add some form of charging fee for electric vehicles at some point, but not now.) The gas tax will raise up to $500 million per year, without having to add any infrastructure like cameras or collection bureaucracy. Pass the law and the money appears. That tax charges everyone who drives rather than just those who drive in Manhattan.

Second, congestion pricing is supposed to reduce the number of vehicles in Manhattan by about 100,000 per day. Here’s a way to do that – ban the 100,000 Ubers and Lyfts that shouldn’t be there in the first place and who got there without paying. That solves that problem. By my studies, 43% of the daytime Midtown cars are Ubers and Lyfts. If you don’t like the midday congestion, get rid of the for-hire vehicles which are not needed and which do nothing but steal riders away from the MTA. Can’t do that you say? Well, then charge them $15,000 per year to oper-

Policing poverty on the subway has proven to be ineffective and dangerous

Last month, NYPD officers opened fire on the subway, shooting four people — two critically wounded. While the NYPD played damage control, widespread agreement emerged on one thing: no one should be shot over a fare. That is not public safety. That is a failed policy.

We shouldn’t have to live like this. Instead of spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars (year after year) on policing poverty, homelessness, and mental health issues, we must invest in solutions that get people in crisis the care — and often the housing — they need and provide a public transit system that everyone can use.

trated in high poverty areas and more than 90% of people arrested for fare evasion are people of color.

Nick Encalada-Mailowski is the Civil Rights Campaign director with VOCAL-NY, and Danny Pearlstein is the Policy and Communications director with Riders Alliance.

Fare evasion enforcement by the NYPD has long been costly, ineffective, and dangerous. (It was only escalation by police that made last month’s interaction near fatal). Despite the city spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on enforcement, there is zero evidence to suggest that the thousands of tickets and arrests impact riders’ decisions about paying the fare. Meanwhile, enforcement is concen-

The NYPD has used larger public safety issues to justify their aggressive fare enforcement, but these arguments also do not hold up to scrutiny. If fare evasion rates are really as high as officials claim, it’s clear that almost no one who jumps the turnstile (or walks through an emergency exit gate or onto a bus without paying) goes on to commit a more serious offense while en route to their destination. Right now, one in 10 NYPD officers are deployed to patrol the subway, where 1-2% of violent crime in New York City occurs.

Despite politically motivated, bad faith rhetoric from some elected leaders, the reality is the vast majority of people who jump turnstiles do so because of poverty and the high cost of a MetroCard — a situation that will only get worse as the cost of living continues to rise. This is common sense in a geographically huge city whose defining characteristic is income

ate in Manhattan, about the same annual interest charge on the loans on the taxi medallions the city sold to balance its budget, and then screwed the yellow cab industry by allowing the Ubers et al in without paying. That $15,000 per year, if you continue to allow the for-hire vehicles to operate in Manhattan, would bring in another $500 million. We are now up to what congestion pricing was supposed to bring in.

Third, raise car registration fees $100 per year in the city and $50 per year in the MTA counties. That would bring in $2-300 million per year. How about residential parking permits? Charge $10 per month to park on the streets. That would bring in over $100 million per year.

With those in place, implement congestion pricing perhaps at a lower price. If this all requires new legislation and a new review, so be it. Legislators might jump at the opportunity to vote for a lower fee plan, especially one with no overnight charge. Even the Feds might buy a plan with lower fees to allow the plan to go forward. And passing the other suggestions would result in money coming into the MTA quickly while that review is being done.

inequality. But we shouldn’t just wave concerns away: there are solutions that solve for the fears and frustration many feel riding the subway these days.

Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul have — through policy and fear-mongering — championed the failed experiment of expanded subway policing that led to the recent shooting and previously resulted in the death of Jordan Neely by vigilante violence. They should instead be focused on three things:

Making public transportation available to all New Yorkers no matter their income level. This could mean an income-adjusted fare that is free for the lowest earners.

Adequately funding the public health infrastructure so that people in mental health crisis can get the immediate care that they need — from a medical professional, not law enforcement.

On-demand supportive housing for people with acute and persistent housing needs.

Transit advocates have long called for more affordable, or even free, public transportation options in NYC, but the systems to support people in need aren’t working.

Right now, it takes months of bureaucratic hoops to get into the far too limited safe haven beds or supportive housing units. Outreach workers often lose contact with their homeless clients before ever

housing them, and that’s not for lack of trying. Few New Yorkers realize this. They have been told by city spokespeople that many homeless subway riders are “service resistant,” forcing the city to use the police to run them off the trains if they refuse to go into congregate shelters that the city fails to make safe, clean, and healthy.  Everyone should have access to high-quality, safe public transit. The fare should not be used to prevent people from accessing the subways or as a tool for the NYPD to initiate pretextual stops. Using police, punishment, and violence to respond to crimes of poverty, homelessness, and unmet mental health needs is cruel, costly, and ineffective. It must stop. Our public transit system can be safe and world-class — but that comes with understanding who uses our transit systems and why. The way forward is clear and wellknown. What we need now is real political leadership from our mayor and governor.

Using punishment and violence to respond to crimes of homelessness and unmet mental health needs must stop.

The MTA needs far more than even the original congestion pricing plan will provide.

To place your listing, visit www.crainsnewyork.com/people-on-the-move or, for more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com

CONSULTING ENGINEERING

Syska Hennessy Group

Syska Hennessy Group has promoted James Carrigan and Alex Engelman, PE, CEM, LEED AP, to principal.

Mr. Carrigan is a onetime firefighter and paramedic who has built a career of more than 40 years engineering fire and life safety systems, and leads Syska’s fire/ life safety practice. He also serves on the New York Fire Codes Committee of the American Council of Engineering Companies’ New York Chapter.

Mr. Engelman, who began his career at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, has nearly two decades of experience in the design and engineering of electrical systems for a wide range of clients, but he is best known for his work on large-scale infrastructure projects for government agencies.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

IDB Bank

Avi Lieberman will serve as Head of New York Commercial Real Estate for IDB Bank, where he drives CRE deal-making across the Bank’s North East operations. In this role, he will lead balance sheet CRE lending across the Bank’s multibilliondollar New York CRE portfolio overseeing loan originations, asset management, operations and deposit gathering. A seasoned industry leader, Avi’s appointment follows his successful tenure as IDB’s CRE Team Leader.

CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

LiRo-Hill

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Sloane & Company

Sloane & Company appoints Leslie Wheeler as Managing Director of its Healthcare Practice. With 25+ years in pharma and biotech, Wheeler will drive agency expansion in these sectors. Previously at Spectrum Science and IPG Weber Shandwick, her experience is set to enhance Sloane’s strategic growth.

Co-CEO Darren Brandt praises Wheeler’s expertise and track record.

LiRo-Hill is proud to announce our recent hire of Joseph Fazio, PE, Senior Vice President. With over 25 years’ experience, Joe has a proven record of delivering outstanding results in the transportation engineering/ construction industry. With an impressive resume that includes managing and delivering highquality projects for Transit/Rail and Highway/Bridge clients, Joe will be a significant contributor bringing his program and project delivery experience to help drive our continued success.

LEGAL

Benesch

Paul J. Kremer has joined Benesch as a Partner in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group. He is a litigation “field general” who can oversee and execute on every aspect of his client’s legal strategy, from pre-suit negotiations through trial and beyond. Paul’s approach to litigation is to deliver best-in-class results using small teams where every lawyer is empowered to make a difference.

LEGAL

Benesch

Nathalie Gorman has joined Benesch as a Managing Associate in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group. Nathalie represents companies in highstakes intellectual property and commercial disputes. Her practice focuses on trade secret, copyright, and First Amendment cases, as well as a wide range of commercial claims. She also advises clients on strategic and compliance issues, including website accessibility.

Maya Rivera has joined Benesch as an Associate in the firm’s Litigation Practice Group. She focuses her practice on data privacy and complex commercial litigation, handling matters such as contract disputes, legal malpractice, business torts, data breaches and class actions.

Carrigan Engelman

Gorman Rivera

NOTABLE BLACK LEADERS

As one enters the Big Apple through the Midtown Tunnel, the words “E Pluribus Unum” — “Out of many, one” — greet every visitor. This storied phrase well encapsulates the spirit of a city where diversity and unity increasingly coexist. But challenges persist, especially in business. A 2023 Pew Research Center study found that nearly 3 in 10 Black workers believe their employers pay too little attention to diversity, equity and inclusion. And roughly half of Black workers feel that their race makes it harder for them to succeed professionally.

The 100 honorees on our list of 2024 Notable Black Leaders undoubtedly know both sides of this coin. In honoring them, Crain’s celebrates Black New Yorkers’ success and advancement, spanning industries from law and finance to nonprofits and the arts. Read on to learn more about these pacesetters and their remarkable achievements.

METHODOLOGY: The featured honorees were put forward for consideration by their peers, companies and acquaintances. Crain’s New York Business editors then selected these nominees based on their demonstrated accomplishments, professional success and meaningful contributions to their respective industries, as represented in the eligibility section of their nomination form.

Alexis Adams

Principal, Grant Thornton

Scope of work: As a tax principal at the accounting firm Grant Thornton, Alexis Adams manages client relationships and leads teams of professionals across the Northeast. She brings two decades of experience to her work with companies in industries such as technology, manufacturing and retail.

Biggest career win: Adams champions diversity and promotes the careers of colleagues of color. Her sponsorship helped Grant Thornton increase Black and Latino representation by 54% in 2023. Nearly 40% of the firm’s partners, principals and managing directors are women or have diverse backgrounds.

Other contributions: Adams is an active member of her industry’s premier association, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, having graduated from AICPA’s Leadership Academy. She has designed and taught multiple continuing education courses.

Marjory Antoine

Vice president of education programs, Birch Family Services

Scope of work: Marjory Antoine is vice president of education programs at Birch Family Services, which helps individuals with autism and developmental disabilities lead fulfilling lives. Antoine, who has been with the organization for three decades, drives curriculum implementation in schools and works to educate both students and staff.

Biggest career win: During the Covid-19 pandemic, she helped teachers and students shift to remote learning, ensuring that administrators and staff had the tools they needed to continue teaching successfully.

Other contributions: Antoine serves as co-director of the Brooklyn Developmental Disabilities Council. She has worked to broaden the scope of public understanding of people with developmental disabilities and helped to foster inclusivity and acceptance.

Carolyn Adams

Director of education, Paul Taylor Dance Foundation

Scope of work: As director of education at the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation, Carolyn Adams oversees operations at the Taylor School, which sustains and advances the field of dance through its high-quality curriculum. Educational outreach includes the Arnhold Tier 3 Initiative and the Polaris Project, which provide accessible tickets and education to New York City public schools and partners.

Biggest career win: Throughout Adams’ tenure, the Arnhold Tier 3 initiative has brought dance to more than 9,000 students at more than 75 New York City public schools. Between the 2021-22 and 202324 academic years, attendance grew by 80%.

Other contributions: Adams has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Taffi Ayodele

Director of DEI and emerging manager strategy for the bureau of asset management, Office of the New York City Comptroller

Scope of work: Taffi Ayodele is director of DEI and emerging manager strategy for the bureau of asset management at the Office of the New York City Comptroller. She drives strategy to engage minority- and women-owned business enterprises and emerging investment managers for the five New York City retirement systems.

Biggest career win: During fiscal year 2023, the systems’ total actively managed, U.S.based assets exposure to MWBE investment managers across all asset classes reached $19.5 billion.

Other contributions: Ayodele co-founded Thando Holdings, a global fashion and technology company that elevates African artists.

Bashir Agboola

Vice president, associate chief information officer and chief technology officer, Hospital for Special Surgery

Scope of work: Bashir Agboola is vice president, associate chief information officer and chief technology officer at the Hospital for Special Surgery. He provides strategic technology leadership, oversees IT infrastructure and aligns technology solutions with business objectives.

Biggest career win: Agboola has successfully led technology initiatives that have enabled many business transformation efforts at HSS. His technology leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic ensured smooth patient care through the rapid scaling of technology infrastructure.

Other contributions: Agboola is a board member at the Center for Family Support. He has won industry awards, including the HMG Strategy Global Leadership Institute Award, and writes on technology and leadership topics.

Ayo Badejo

Partner, Sidley Austin

Scope of work: Ayo Badejo is a partner in the New York office of the law firm Sidley Austin. He focuses on the mergers and acquisitions and private equity groups. Concentrating on corporate and securities matters, corporate structuring activities and corporate governance, Badejo has represented a broad range of emerging growth companies, private equity firms, financial institutions, Fortune 500 companies and healthcare providers.

Biggest career win: Badejo co-led the Sidley Austin team that guided the professional services and investment management company Colliers through a successful diversification of its holdings.

Other contributions: Badejo serves as secretary of the board of the United Way of Northern New Jersey, helping asset-limited, income-constrained employed families.

Seun Ajibade

Director of nursing for behavioral health services, NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health

Scope of work: Seun Ajibade is director of nursing for behavioral health services at NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health. He manages inpatient units and supervises a psychiatric emergency department.

Biggest career win: Ajibade led the implementation of a comprehensive restraint reduction program from 2022 to 2023 within behavioral health services. This initiative resulted in a nearly 20% reduction in restraints in inpatient units. These measures significantly enhanced patient safety and care quality, improving patient outcomes and increasing staff engagement in safe practices.

Other contributions: Ajibade speaks at events addressing mental health disparities in the Black population, offering solutions for overcoming service reluctance. He mentors students, providing insight and resources.

President and managing partner, Lord Cultural Resources

Scope of work: Joy Bailey-Bryant is president and managing partner of the cultural consulting practice Lord Cultural Resources. Leading a team of 40 professionals and overseeing an annual budget of $6 million, she is responsible for strategic direction and client relations. Biggest career win: Bailey-Bryant guided projects such as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. She led a plan to create a framework for the rebirth of the Weeksville Heritage Center.

Other contributions: Bailey-Bryant is an advisory board member of the Girl Scouts of Heart of the Hudson and belongs to the national heritage and archives committee for the Delta Sigma Theta sorority.

Joy Bailey-Bryant

Adam Banks

Partner, Weil, Gotshal & Manges

Scope of work: Adam Banks is a partner in the appeals and strategic counseling practice at the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges. In cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit, he worked to defeat last-ditch efforts to derail Microsoft’s game-changing $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Biggest career win: In March 2024, Banks won a unanimous reversal for Regeneron before the Second Circuit, sustaining its plaintiff antitrust suit and correcting a lower court decision that threatened the future of government antitrust enforcement.

Other contributions: Banks serves as co-chair of the firm’s diversity committee and is co-head of the group WeilPride, overseeing the firm’s overall diversity efforts, including instituting and upholding measures for accountability.

Schillivia Baptiste

Chief executive officer, Laland Baptiste

Scope of work: Schillivia Baptiste serves as chief executive officer of the construction management and engineering firm Laland Baptiste. She has particular expertise in site and land development, drainage design, environmental review, and zoning and land use analysis.

Biggest career win: Under her leadership, Laland Baptiste was awarded the prime contract to be the construction manager for the New York City Department of Design and Construction’s mentoring program. Transitioning from a subconsultant to a prime consultant allowed the firm to manage multimillion-dollar contracts and opened doors to more city and state projects.

Other contributions: Baptiste is president of the New York chapter for Professional Women in Construction and serves as a mentor for the ACE Mentor Program.

Kelly Batts

Chief diversity officer, Cooley

Scope of work: As chief diversity officer at the law firm Cooley, Kelly Batts sets DEI strategy and works to mitigate bias and sponsor diverse attorney and business professional advancement. Batts manages 10 affinity groups and leads local diversity initiatives.

Biggest career win: Batts previously led a DEI consulting practice at Deloitte, generating $30 million in revenue through delivery of DEI strategy and analytics. At Cooley, he organized a gathering of nearly 300 diverse attorneys for skill-based learning and connection, enhancing the firm’s commitment to diversity.

Other contributions: Batts serves on the advisory board for The Climb, a nonprofit that is dedicated to supporting women of color in their pursuit of executive roles.

Nikole Benders-Hadi

Chief medical officer, Talkspace

Scope of work: As chief medical officer at the online therapy company Talkspace, Nikole Benders-Hadi oversees its clinical practice and collaborates with providers to deliver high-quality digital mental health care. She works closely with the product team to refine Talkspace’s platform and is a member of the artificial intelligence innovation group’s governance committee.

Biggest career win: Benders-Hadi was influential in rolling out the New York City Health Department’s Teenspace program, which tapped Talkspace to provide free therapy. Research suggests that 65% of participants had improvements in anxiety and depression symptoms within three months.

Other contributions: She has been a member of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry on the gender and mental health committee since 2013.

Therest Billouin-Roberts

Senior managing director of supplier diversity, Webster Bank

Scope of work: Therest BillouinRoberts serves as senior managing director of supplier diversity at Webster Bank. In this role, she is responsible for creating a strategy to create a supplier diversity program that helps underrepresented business groups secure vendor relationships with Webster.

Biggest career win: Prior to building Webster’s supplier diversity program, Billouin-Roberts led client experience and banking center operations for Sterling National Bank’s New York retail branches.

Other contributions: Billouin-Roberts sits on the board of Community Mediation Services, which supports at-risk adolescents, vulnerable communities and families in need. In addition she volunteers with Global Kids.

G. Lamont Blackstone

Principal, G.L. Blackstone & Associates

Scope of work: G. Lamont Blackstone serves as principal at his eponymous firm, G.L. Blackstone & Associates. He is an award-winning professional who has sourced, structured, negotiated and implemented retail real estate development deals in urban markets.

Biggest career win: Blackstone played a key role in the $70 million capital campaign for the restoration of Newark Symphony Hall, successfully leading the application for a competitive state historic tax credit that secured $8 million through the Historic Property Reinvestment Program. Other contributions: Blackstone has been a pivotal figure in promoting diversity in commercial real estate in his role as the longtime chairman of Project Reap. Under his leadership, Project Reap has trained more than 2,000 fellows.

Hope Boykin

Choreographer and director, HopeBoykinDance

Scope of work: Hope Boykin is a writer, choreographer, director and producer at HopeBoykinDance. She has received commissions from prestigious dance companies, including the Alvin Ailey American Theater. She has produced 25 ballets since 2016, creating an average of two large-scale pieces annually. Currently, she is at work on “Finding Free” for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which will soon premiere at New York City Center..

Biggest career win: Boykin was featured on the October 2023 cover of Dance Magazine and in The New York Times for her Joyce Theater world premiere of “States Of Hope.”

Other contributions: Boykin is artistic advisor for dance education at The Kennedy Center and artistic lead of the Kennedy Center Dance Lab.

Nicole Fanjul is a banking partner and Co-Deputy Office Managing Partner (OMP) of Latham & Watkins’ New York office, the firm’s largest, with more than 830 lawyers on the front lines of handling complex, cross-border transactions and high-stakes disputes.

Fanjul balances her leadership duties with her distinguished banking practice, representing lenders and corporate borrowers in a variety of complex financings. Fanjul led a landmark deal, guiding the lenders in Zendesk’s $10.2 billion acquisition by an investor group—the largest private debt-backed leveraged buyout deal by debt size at the time.

The office’s first Black Deputy OMP, Fanjul leads a DEI working group. Her efforts contributed to more than 55% racial and ethnic minority representation in the past two years’ recruitment classes. Through her pro-bono practice, she counsels immigrant domestic violence survivors under the Violence Against Women Act and advises on immigration matters such as securing asylum and U-visas.

Fanjul is a founding member of the Council of Black Leaders in Finance and is a board member for The Acceleration Project, a nonprofit that boosts economic development by deploying local professionals to provide strategic and tactical advice to small businesses in their communities.

Dwayne Brown

Deputy executive director of workforce and education, Phipps Neighborhoods

Scope of work: As deputy executive director of workforce and education at Phipps Neighborhoods, Dwayne Brown manages an annual budget of $9 million in public and private funding. He oversees the coordination of workforce training and education programs, focusing on enhancing job training and increasing participants’ academic success.

Biggest career win: Brown worked to expand and implement the Summer Youth Employment Program and launched the Career Network Building Service Training Program, which has achieved a more than 90% completion rate. Other contributions: An active member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, he serves as director of educational activities for the Bronx chapter.

Sharon Brown

Partner, diversity partner and public finance practice area

co-chair, Barclay Damon

Scope of work: As a partner, diversity partner and co-chair of the public finance practice area at the law firm Barclay Damon, Sharon Brown concentrates on the federal tax treatment of tax-exempt bond financings, helping governmental clients in the tax structuring of governmental and private activity bond transactions.

Biggest career win: Brown worked on revamping Barclay Damon’s summer associate program, implementing an orientation program that featured firm leaders and built relationships with law schools to reach diverse students. In 2024, 73% of the summer associate class was female.

Other contributions: Brown serves on the boards of trustees for multiple primary, secondary and post-secondary schools in the New York City area.

Leslie Brun

Founder, chairman and chief executive officer, Ariel Alternatives

Scope of work: Leslie Brun is founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Ariel Alternatives, the private equity subsidiary of Ariel Investments. Ariel Alternatives secured the commitments of leading Fortune 500 limited partners and co-investors, such as Walmart and Salesforce, for its first fund, Project Black.

Biggest career win: Under Brun’s leadership, the Ariel Alternatives team closed Project Black in February 2023 with $1.45 billion in commitments.

Other contributions: Brun serves as lead director of Broadridge Financial Solutions and serves on the board of directors of Corning. He is also an advisor in Bank of America’s enterprise executive development program and serves as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

NOTABLE SPOTLIGHT with Nicole Fanjul

An attorney makes her mark in leading complex transactions, cultivating diversity, and helping affirm Latham’s standing as a premier law firm

What leadership qualities from your work managing complex financial transactions have you brought to your role as Co-Deputy Managing Partner?

Success in managing complex financial transactions can be attributed to a combination of strategic vision, effective communication, and a collaborative approach. An ability to adapt, stay calm under pressure and make informed decisions quickly is also crucial.

The 800+ lawyers in our New York office handle sophisticated, interdisciplinary, and cross-border work, including complex controversies and landmark transactions across a range of industries and geographies. Beyond legal services, our New York lawyers and professionals also support prominent civic organizations in the city.

You started your career in Latham’s New York office. What is it like to now be a Co-Deputy Office Managing Partner there?

I’m honored and humbled to have started my career here and to now serve as a Co-Deputy Office Managing Partner of the office. It has given me a unique perspective on the firm’s growth and evolution. We’re leaders

in the market and we have incredible momentum, which is evident through the awards and recognitions we receive, the clients we serve, and the matters we handle. We’re committed to being a destination firm for the next generation of legal talent from all backgrounds.

How do you develop creative solutions for complex deals, and what has been your most challenging transaction?

We have a track record of anticipating and responding to the evolving market dynamics. We work alongside clients to pioneer diverse and sophisticated investment strategies. For example, in the past 12 months, especially as the IPO market changed, our capital markets and finance lawyers pivoted to identify alternative sources of capital and structures to help clients get their deals done, we led the way investing in serving clients in areas such as the private credit and hybrid space.

How has your role in the Black Lawyers Group promoted diversity, and how do you see diversity shaping the legal industry?

I’ve been honored to serve in several leadership roles that help foster diversity and inclusion at our firm and in the

profession, including leading the Black Lawyers Group in the New York office. At Latham, we say “belong as you are”, and that’s illustrative of the culture we’re trying to create and that we feel is reflected in this city, where we’re part of a diverse legal and business community. The commitment to diversity in the legal industry necessarily extends to promoting justice, connectedness, allyship and belonging.

How do you help clients navigate a rapidly changing financial landscape?

One thing that is constant is change. We’re always thinking about where the market is going, and because of the depth and breadth of what we cover, we stay ahead of the market trends and regulatory changes, often seeing and shaping the trends as they occur. Perhaps one of the things I’m most proud of is how we collaborate, working across practice areas to meet our clients’ most pressing business challenges, offering strategic solutions that mitigate risks and capitalize on opportunities. It’s fun and rewarding.

Rodney Capel

Vice president of government affairs, Charter Communications

Scope of work: Rodney Capel serves as vice president for government affairs in the northeast region for Charter Communications. He oversees government affairs and strategic partnerships and investments.

Biggest career win: Capel was a member of the leadership team responsible for securing in 2022 Charter Communications’ landmark three-year agreement with the New York City Office of Innovation and Technology to launch Big Apple Connect, the country’s largest free municipal broadband program.

Other contributions: Capel is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, 100 Black Men and Joppa Lodge No. 55. He also sits on the board of the Opportunity Charter School. Capel previously served as a board member of the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem.

Maxine Carrington

Senior vice president and chief people officer, Northwell Health

Scope of work: As senior vice president and chief people officer at Northwell Health, Maxine Carrington drives engagement, development and diversity and inclusion efforts. She leads or has led team member experience, career and performance development, change management, compensation and corporate social responsibility.

Biggest career win: Under Carrington’s leadership, Northwell Health reported improvements in engagement and career development: 90% of respondents to a survey felt that Northwell Health values employees from diverse backgrounds and has demonstrated commitment to ensuring an inclusive environment.

Other contributions: Carrington is a trustee of the 1199 Pension Fund and serves on the board of the National Center for Healthcare Leadership.

Majora Carter

Real estate developer, Majora Carter Group

Scope of work: Majora Carter is a real estate developer at the eponymous Majora Carter Group. She works to maintain the firm’s positive public image as one that challenges long-held assumptions regarding the nonprofit industrial complex.

Biggest career win: Carter is the only Black woman (who is not an entertainer) to speak on the TED main stage more than once (in 2006 and 2022). She was invited back based on the strength of her book, “Reclaiming Your Community.”

Other contributions: Carter has served on numerous boards over the years including those of USGBC, Andrew Goodman Foundation, Ceres, Health First and other organizations. That is in addition to her informal mentoring and pro bono consulting.

NOTE WORTHY

14,265

Marisha Clinton

Vice president of research east, Savills

Scope of work: Marisha Clinton is vice president of research east at the property advisor Savills, overseeing commercial real estate research efforts. In that role, she supervises and implements the overall strategic research plan in alignment with executive management teams, serving as the market expert and leading voice of research for the region.

Biggest career win: In her first year at Savills, Clinton successfully rebuilt the northeast research department, streamlining processes and quarterly reporting. She also enhanced client-facing content for business development.

Other contributions: Since 2007, Clinton has served on the board of directors of the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, the nation’s first community development corporation, which enhances quality of life for central Brooklyn residents and businesses.

Jeanine D. Costley

Senior vice president for transitional services, Institute for Community Living

Scope of work: Jeanine D. Costley serves as senior vice president for transitional services at the Institute for Community Living, offering homeless or formerly homeless adults access to more than 1,000 beds and community-based services. Costley and her team ensure that shelter residents receive the housing, counseling, employment and case management service they need.

Biggest career win: Under Costley’s leadership, ICL transitioned more than 230 veterans from its Veterans Residence into permanent housing in 2023. Other contributions: Costley is a professor at Medgar Evers College, where she shares her expertise on such subjects as trauma-informed care for homeless women of color. In addition, she volunteers with Heritage of Pride.

In 2021, the New York metropolitan area was home to 14,265 Black-owned businesses. (Brookings)

David Crichlow

Partner and co-chair of the litigation department, Katten

Scope of work: David Crichlow is a partner and co-chair of the litigation department at the law firm Katten, where he manages commercial disputes, class-action claims and multibillion-dollar bankruptcy proceedings. Crichlow is also a member of the executive committee and the board of directors.

Biggest career win: In an arbitration matter between two global gas companies, Crichlow represented the plaintiff in a claim alleging repudiation of a joint venture design, build and long-term gas supply agreement for a U.S. hydrogen plant. The recovery was the largest for any matter handled by the firm’s commercial litigation group that year.

Other contributions: Crichlow is a board member of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

Scope of work: Maria Cruz Melendez is a partner in white collar defense and investigations at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. She represents individuals and corporations in domestic and cross-border investigations and civil and administrative proceedings conducted by government and regulatory entities in connection with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, U.S. securities laws and other domestic and international enforcement matters.

Biggest career win: Cruz Melendez has worked on a pro bono Section 1983 civil rights litigation on behalf of a deathrow inmate, who has consistently maintained his innocence.

Other contributions: She has devoted time to diversity, equity and inclusion and the mentorship of lawyers and students from diverse backgrounds.

Jackee de Lagarde

Vice president of global licensing, Kate Spade New York

Scope of work: As vice president of global licensing for the fashion brand Kate Spade New York, Jackee de Lagarde is responsible for setting and implementing strategies to maximize the brand’s existing licensing program to build brand awareness, acquire new distribution and customers and drive revenue.

Biggest career win: One of the most significant deals de Lagarde managed was a collaboration with Starbucks. Launched for the holiday season in 2020, the partnership offered a curated merchandise collection. In response to customer demand, de Lagarde led a second collaboration between the two brands in 2022.

Other contributions: She has provided mentorship through Kate Spade New York’s Embracing Difference by Design sponsorship program.

Jonnel Doris

Chief executive officer, Start Treatment & Recovery Centers

Scope of work: Jonnel Doris is chief executive officer at Start Treatment & Recovery Centers, a Black-led health care organization that provides comprehensive, culturally responsive and compassionate care focused on addiction recovery, mental health care and biomedical research.

Biggest career win: Doris helped raise more than $9 million that led to new programming and new research advancements. His tenure has seen an increase in participation in the organization’s adult vocational programming, as well as an expansion of its service disciplines and the introduction of peer advisory to its programming.

Other contributions: Doris was recently appointed to the New York City Children’s Center Board of Visitors. In addition, he cochairs the Mayoral Interfaith Mental Health Group.

Brandilyn Y. Dumas

Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig

Scope of work: As a shareholder in Greenberg Traurig’s New York real estate practice, Brandilyn Y. Dumas focuses on commercial real estate transactions, bringing to them an expertise in acquisitions and dispositions, joint ventures, foreclosures and restructurings for various asset classes.

Biggest career win: Dumas has represented clients in complex transactions worth more than $2 billion, including advising one film studio developer in connection with the mortgage and mezzanine financing of multiple sites in California and New York.

Other contributions: Dumas is a trustee at Winchester Thurston School. She has also provided pro bono legal services to the East Harlem Tutorial Program for nearly a decade and serves as a mentor for the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity.

Maria Cruz Melendez

Yves Duroseau

Vice president of the western region emergency medicine service line, Northwell Health

Scope of work: Yves Duroseau, a physician, is vice president of the western region emergency medicine service line and chair of emergency medicine at Northwell Lenox Hill Hospital. He oversees ve emergency departments and provides leadership for strategic and nancial planning, clinical services and research.

Biggest career win: Duroseau co-chairs the African American and Caribbean business employee resource group at Northwell. He is also focused on health equity initiatives including an effort to standardize the care of patients with sickle cell disease in emergency departments across the company.

Other contributions: Duroseau lectures for the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Atiba T. Edwards

President and chief executive of cer, Brooklyn Children’s Museum

Scope of work: As the rst Black man to serve as president and chief executive of cer for the Brooklyn Children’s Museum in its 125 year history, Atiba T. Edwards is responsible for setting a strategic vision that ensures the world’s rst children’s museum remains a pioneer.

Biggest career win: Under Edwards’ leadership, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum saw a 33% increase in visitors between 2022 and 2023. He also worked to safely reopen the museum within six months of its closure during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Other contributions: Edwards is a board member and treasurer of the NY Writers Coalition. In addition, he is the co-founder and executive director of the arts nonpro t Fokus.

Nicole Fanjul

Co-deputy of ce managing partner, Latham & Watkins

Scope of work: Nicole Fanjul is co-deputy of ce managing partner for Latham & Watkins’ New York of ce, the rm’s largest with nearly 800 lawyers. Her responsibilities include diversity, equity and inclusion strategies, community engagement, lateral partner hiring and associate recruitment and retention.

Biggest career win: In 2021, Fanjul became the rst Black deputy of ce managing partner for the New York of ce. She also led a deal guiding lenders in Zendesk’s $10.2 billion acquisition — the largest private debt-backed leveraged buyout by debt size at the time.

Other contributions: Fanjul provides pro bono services that include advising on immigration matters, aiding immigrant domestic violence survivors and working on efforts to secure asylum.

Eight

Ann-Marie Foster

President and chief executive of cer, Phoenix House New York/Long Island

Scope of work: Ann-Marie Foster is president and chief executive of cer of Phoenix House New York/Long Island, an organization that helps people challenged with substance use and co-occurring mental health conditions. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing the entire organization. This involves managing signi cant aspects of administration and health and wellness.

Biggest career win: Foster expanded the New York footprint of Phoenix House’s services, taking it from a $27 million organization to a $54 million entity.

Other contributions: Foster serves on the transitional board of InUnity Alliance, the Addiction Rehabilitative Center and Mental Health News Education. A well-known leader, she values every opportunity to speak publicly about recovery.

Wanda French-Brown

Partner, Fox Rothschild

Scope of work: Wanda FrenchBrown is a partner at the law rm Fox Rothschild, working with clients to protect their intellectual property, often in federal district and appellate courts and before the U.S. International Trade Commission and Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Biggest career win: FrenchBrown is lead plaintiff’s counsel in an ongoing patent infringement action led by San Rocco Therapeutics against Bluebird Bio and Third Rock Ventures. The complaint, led in 2021 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, alleges more than $2 billion in damages.

Other contributions: FrenchBrown is a member of the board of directors of Lambda Legal and is a member of the National LGBT Bar Association.

There were eight Black chief executive of cers in the 2023 Fortune 500, the highest number since the ranking was launched in 1955. (Investopedia) NOTE

Michael J. Garner

Chief business diversity of cer, City of New York

Scope of work: As New York City’s rst chief business diversity of cer, Michael J. Garner is responsible for diversifying $41 billion in annual procurement spending for 45 different city agencies and authorities.

Biggest career win: Garner led the New York City team that worked to push New York State to allow the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to exceed Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 30% minority- and women-owned business enterprises goal. He and his team have been responsible for $9 billion in contract awards going to MWBEs.

Other contributions: Garner has served as a board member and advisor to nonpro ts such as the Greater Uptown Harlem Chamber of Commerce and the Mount Sinai Innovation Board.

Elaine Gordon-Kelly

New York area operations manager, DHL Express U.S.

Scope of work: As the New York area operations manager for the leading shipping provider DHL Express U.S., Elaine Gordon-Kelly manages more than 400 employees, organizing and executing projects and driving business priorities that achieve operational and revenue growth.

Biggest career win: Under Gordon-Kelly’s leadership, the company has exceeded revenue growth plans by more than 13%. She manages a diverse team that consistently provides high-quality services for customers and has implemented safety protocols that signi cantly reduced worker compensation costs.

Other contributions: Gordon-Kelly serves as a transportation and logistics coordinator for Christadelphian Chapel in West eld, N.J., coordinating community outreach programs.

Alicia Graf Mack

Dean and director of the dance division, The Juilliard School

Scope of work: Alicia Graf Mack serves as dean and director of the dance division at The Juilliard School. Under her leadership, Juilliard Dance has expanded its programs to include annual New Dances and Spring Dances series. They include guest choreographers and performance exchange opportunities that allow for students to gain professional experience while earning their degrees.

Biggest career win: As a champion of access in the arts, Graf Mack has overseen equity-driven curriculum changes, including adding required classes in West African dance.

Other contributions: Graf Mack is a co-founder of D(n)A Arts Collective, an initiative created to enrich the lives of young dancers through master classes and intensives.

Dona Green

Distinguished Careers Institute fellow, Stanford University

Scope of work: Dona Green recently retired from her position as senior vice president of strategic planning and major capital project management at One Brooklyn Health after being accepted by Stanford University as a Distinguished Careers Institute fellow. She will also be advising the Central Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation on the development of a youth offshore wind training program.

Biggest career win: In her previous role at One Brooklyn Health, Green led a proposal that landed the $700 million Kings County Transformation Grant from the New York State Department of Health and the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York.

Other contributions: The Healthcare Leaders of New York awarded Green the Senior Level Healthcare Executive Award.

Aisha Greene

Chief attorney development and diversity of cer, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft

Scope of work: Aisha Greene is chief attorney development and diversity of cer at the law rm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. She oversees the attorney development, training, diversity and pro bono/corporate social responsibility departments.

Biggest career win: Greene played a key role in establishing the Rohan Levy Foundation, which provides opportunities and scholarships for young men in Brooklyn. Other contributions: Greene is on the board of directors for the Professional Development Consortium, a nonpro t association of individuals responsible for training and continuing professional development for current and future lawyers and other law rm professionals. She also sits on the board of directors and serves as fundraising chair of the Rohan Levy Foundation.

Melanie Hartzog

President and chief executive officer, The New York Foundling

Scope of work: As president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit The New York Foundling, Melanie Hartzog has overseen the transition to a “one front door” approach that helps families in need of foster care, mental health, education, housing or juvenile justice services access the full range of evidence-based programs provided by the organization.

Biggest career win: Hartzog has opened multiple projects for the underserved, including Vital Brookdale, a complex for people with developmental disabilities, and the new mother-child housing site in the Bronx, which provides support for young mothers who are themselves in foster care and their children.

Other contributions: Hartzog sits on the board of the New York Junior Tennis League.

Kevin Heslop

Executive vice president of finance, Acacia Network

Scope of work: As the executive vice president of finance for the human services organization

Acacia Network, Kevin Heslop oversees an annual budget of $600 million and a team of 40 accountants. He is responsible for the accounting and reporting operations for the Acacia Network affiliates under his supervision, including financial management and budget development.

Biggest career win: Heslop restructured the firm’s finance team and implemented a fiscal model that provided for the growth of a transitional housing portfolio from an annual budget of $190 million in 2021 to $400 million in 2024.

Other contributions: Heslop previously served as a board member of the nonprofit Jamaica Impact, Inc. He provides pro bono advisory services to small accounting firms.

Dawn Heyward

Deputy director of early childhood education, East Side House Settlement

Scope of work: Dawn Heyward is deputy director of early childhood education at East Side House Settlement, managing five day care centers and six community schools. She oversees a $6 million budget and leads efforts to secure funding opportunities through public and private solicitations.

Biggest career win: In addition to securing a substantial Head Start grant, Heyward has advocated for fair wages and helped increase funding, improve staff welfare and boost morale.

Other contributions: Heyward is a lecturer at Columbia University’s School of Social Work, participates in organizations such as the United Neighborhood Houses leadership panels and has presented at the National Head Start Association and the National Center for Family Learning.

Wendy Hilliard

Founder and chief executive officer, Wendy Hilliard Gymnastics Foundation

Scope of work: Wendy Hilliard is the founder and chief executive officer of the eponymous Wendy Hilliard Gymnastics Foundation, which has served more than 25,000 youth over 25 years. She manages employees and develops partnerships, revenue and fundraising to bring high-quality gymnastics to urban youth.

Biggest career win: Over the past five years, Hilliard has helped WHGF overcome challenges related to the Covid-19 pandemic, securing public funding and providing virtual classes to thousands of youth. WHGF, now fully operational, is supported by gymnasts including Simone Biles.

Other contributions: Hilliard served on the executive committee of USA Gymnastics for more than 10 years and represented gymnastics on the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Ellen Holloman

Partner, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft

Scope of work: As a partner at the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, Ellen Holloman’s focus is on representing financial institutions, corporations and individuals in litigation, arbitrations and at trial, and in regulatory proceedings and internal investigations.

Biggest career win: Holloman secured a 2024 settlement for the world’s largest alcohol spirits company, ending multiple dispute proceedings and severing all ties with its former spokesperson, a high-profile entrepreneur and hip-hop music personality.

Other contributions: The New York City Bar Association honored Holloman with the Thurgood Marshall Award for her representation of post-conviction inmates under sentence of capital punishment. She has received the Award for Conspicuous Service from the New York County Lawyers Association.

Marielle Houdre

Senior manager of commercial planning and performance, Moët Hennessy USA

Scope of work: Marielle Houdre is senior manager of commercial planning and performance at Moët Hennessy USA. She supports budget management and nancial analytics for the commercial organization.

Biggest career win: After becoming a parent, Houdre shared her desire to be closer to the business. She shifted into the role of planning and performance partner for the ne dining channel, in so doing successfully transposing her nance background to support team development.

Other contributions: Houdre is a member of The Parent Collective employee resource group. Her leadership facilitated two Take Your Kid to Work Days, $12,500 in scholarships for Moët Hennessy USA families and volunteer opportunities for more than a dozen employees.

Elaine Houston

Director of public relations and storytelling, Business for Good

Scope of work: Elaine Houston is the director of public relations and storytelling at Business for Good, a nonpro t that examines social inequities and offers solutions-based alternatives. Houston investigates the lived experiences of people in marginalized communities and through data-driven reports describes how Business for Good partners with communities to challenge issues such as wage inequality, food insecurity and disparities in housing.

Biggest career win: In 2022 Houston won an Emmy for a social justice report on environmental racism. In 2020 she was named a Journalist of Distinction by the National Association of Black Journalists.

Other contributions: Houston founded an after-school reading program, The Cookie House, and created the Shespeaks2me Summits for women.

Cassaundra Howell

Chief operating of cer, Public Health Solutions

Scope of work: Cassaundra Howell serves as the chief operating of cer at Public Health Solutions, where she oversees about 460 employees across the nance, human resources, information technology, real estate and advocacy sectors.

Biggest career win: Howell has spearheaded initiatives that have revolutionized the organization’s operations and culture. She has addressed critical issues in nance, information technology and human resources at Public Health Solutions, establishing operational equity standards and enhancing facilities, technology access and human resources policies.

Other contributions: Howell is an advisor for Boss Me In, she mentors Gen Z women and helps bridge intergenerational gaps in the workplace. She is also a member of Chief.

Vanessa Jackson

Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell

Scope of work: A partner in the nance practice at Davis Polk & Wardwell, Vanessa Jackson represents borrowers and lenders on a range of nance transactions – including leveraged and investment-grade acquisition nancings and debt restructurings – that regularly involve billions of dollars.

Biggest career win: During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jackson secured more than $14 billion in nancing for major airlines, including Delta, helping to keep the aviation industry aloft.

Other contributions: Jackson is co-chair of her rm’s diversity, equity and inclusion committee and partner liaison for the rm’s Black af nity group. She is a founding member of the Council of Black Leaders in Finance, a network working to grow the ranks of Black professionals in the industry.

Dani James

Partner and co-chair of the white collar defense and investigations practice, Kramer Levin

Scope of work: Dani James is partner and co-chair of the white collar defense and investigations practice at the law rm Kramer Levin. A former federal prosecutor, she represents individuals and companies in often high-prole criminal and regulatory trials, hearings, investigations and other proceedings conducted by federal and state agencies.

Biggest career win: James co-led the team that represented Ted Huber of the hedge fund Deer eld Management in one of the nation’s most prominent white-collar defense wins in recent years.

Other contributions: Outside of work, James serves on the advisory board of Legal Outreach, which prepares New York City youth in underserved communities to compete at high academic levels.

Xavier James

Chief operating of cer, Major League Baseball Players Association

Scope of work: As chief operating of cer of the Major League Baseball Players Association, Xavier James oversees organizational infrastructure, human resources, nance, information technology, budgeting and philanthropy. He also serves on the board for MLB Players Inc.

Biggest career win: James’s leadership was instrumental in founding OneTeam Partners, a joint venture with the National Football League Players Association and other sports unions. OneTeam Partners’ strategic and consulting services help professional athletes foster lasting partnerships with commercial brands in the sports sector.

Other contributions: James formed Players Way, an MLBPA subsidiary that provides children with coaching and developmental skills.

Monique Jefferson

Chief people of cer, Community Preservation Corporation

Scope of work: As chief people of cer at the nonpro t lender Community Preservation Corporation, Monique Jefferson crafts and executes long-term human capital visions with a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Biggest career win: Jefferson spearheaded a diversity-related strategic plan that resulted in gender parity at all levels of the organization. She also commissioned a pay equity study. In addition, the medical expense reimbursement plan she and her team implemented eliminated a 17.5% health care cost increase.

Other contributions: Jefferson serves as facet chair for the Brooklyn chapter of Services to Youth at The Links, Incorporated, which aims to increase the pipeline of Black youth attending historically Black colleges and universities and majoring in science, technology, engineering, arts or mathematics.

Janine Jjingo

Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

Scope of work: A partner in the banking group at the law rm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Janine Jjingo advises public and private corporations, investment and commercial banks, private equity funds and nancial institution investors in a wide range of U.S. and cross-border transactions.

Biggest career win: Jjingo served as co-chair of the summer associate program, and during the Covid-19 pandemic she led efforts to recreate elements of the program in a virtual space.

Other contributions: Jjingo is a pro bono advocate, recently advising an innovative nonpro t providing income-contingent funding options for undergraduate students at minority-serving institutions who are majoring in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. She speaks on panels at Columbia Law School.

Marcus C. Johnson

Vice president and director of purchasing, Phipps Houses

Scope of work: Marcus C. Johnson, vice president and director of purchasing for the nonpro t Phipps Houses, oversees energy procurement for the organization’s entire portfolio. He manages personnel, contractors and vendors while also tracking and analyzing data.

Biggest career win: Johnson has expertise in minimizing and mitigating risk, especially supply chain risk, which has been instrumental to the success of the organization. Notably, he secured a $494,000 cost savings on an elevator modernization project at one of Phipps Houses’ affordable housing buildings.

Other contributions: Johnson mentors peers in the affordable housing eld, attends trade shows and participates in procurement courses to stay current with industry trends and best practices.

Jennifer Jones Austin

Chief executive of cer and executive director, Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies

Scope of work: Jennifer Jones Austin is the chief executive of cer and executive director of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies. She spearheads a team of 35 at the organization, which has an $8 million annual operating budget.

Biggest career win: As chair of the New York City Racial Justice Commission, Jones Austin led the drafting of three racial equity ballot proposals that enshrined racial justice and economic equity in the city’s charter. In 2022, more than 70% of voting New Yorkers came out in favor.

Other contributions: Jones Austin is a member of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Reparations Community Commission and is co-chair of the National True Cost of Living Coalition.

When you’re this proud, you have to get loud. Congratulations to Alexis Adams for being named a Crain’s Notable Black Leader!

Katrina Jones

Senior vice president of human resources and talent management, Acacia Network

Scope of work: As senior vice president of human resources and talent management at Acacia Network, a human services organization, Katrina Jones leads a team of 30 human resources professionals and manages six collective bargaining agreements.

Biggest career win: During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jones orchestrated hiring of more than 600 employees, managed months-long collective bargaining negotiations and led a team that staffed three isolation shelters.

Other contributions: Jones mentors human resources professionals and provides internship opportunities. She is a member of the Forbes Human Resources Council, Harvard Business Review advisory council and the Society for Human Resource Management’s executive network.

Khary Lazarre-White

Executive director and co-founder, The Brotherhood Sister Sol

Scope of work: Khary LazarreWhite is executive director and co-founder of The Brotherhood Sister Sol, a social justice youth development organization focused on educating, organizing and training. It has served thousands of New York City youth and trained more than 3,000 educators from 300 entities nationwide to provide transformational impact.

Biggest career win: LazarreWhite led a $22 million capital campaign to build a headquarters that expresses the organization’s mission.

Other contributions: LazarreWhite is on the board of trustees of the Community Service Society. He is also on the dean’s advisory council for the CUNY School for Public Health and is chair of the board of trustees of the Elba Hope Foundation.

Georges Leconte

Chief executive officer, NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem

Scope of work: Georges Leconte is chief executive officer of New York City Health + Hospitals/ Harlem. He chairs the cardiac patient outcome research trials and the hospital-wide intensive care unit committees.

Biggest career win: In his previous role at NYC Health + Hospitals/ Elmhurst, Leconte spearheaded the development of an elective cardiac angioplasty program and secured funding for and implemented a CT/ biplane for neuro-intervention, a CT/simulator for radiotherapy, an MRI suite, an angiography suite and a 3D mammography unit.

Other contributions: Leconte supports Haitians United for Progress, Healthcare Leaders of New York and the National Association of Healthcare Service Executives. He has held appointments as an adjunct instructor and student advisor at New York University.

Dawnette Lewis

Director of the Center for Maternal Health, Northwell Health

Scope of work: Dawnette Lewis, a physician, is director of Northwell Health’s Center for Maternal Health. She guides its mission of reducing maternal morbidity and mortality rates, specifically among Black women.

Biggest career win: Lewis helped implement the Maternal Outcomes Navigation program across health system departments. Providing support outside the hospital during both the prenatal and postpartum periods, the program reduced hospitalizations caused by pregnancy-related, life-threatening problems by 47% among all participating women and by 69% among participating Black women.

Other contributions: Lewis is the physician lead of the New York State Birth Equity Improvement Project. She is also a 2024 board member of the NY-CHAMP Maternal Health Research Center of Excellence.

Lori Llewellyn Managing director, CDP North America

Scope of work: As managing director at CDP North America, the world’s only integrated environmental disclosure platform, Lori Llewellyn leads a team of 13 direct reports and more than 100 staff members. Overseeing regional technology and legal issues, she directs the people team in trend analysis and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Biggest career win: Llewellyn reorganized the human resources team, established an internal recruiting function, halved hiring time and reallocated funds to development programs while achieving a 35% increase in diverse hires, including neurodiverse candidates. She also launched the North American Equity Council.

Other contributions: Llewellyn is a member of the Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn and a member of the professional services organization Black In HR.

Ivoire Lloyd

Director of business development, EXP Services

Scope of work: As director of business development at EXP Services, an engineering, architecture, design and consulting rm, Ivoire Lloyd drives internal and external strategic marketing and business development plans. She has two decades of experience in marketing, business development, corporate communications and proposal coordination.

Biggest career win: Lloyd has worked on major task order contracts, including the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s rst all-agency inde nite delivery/inde nite quantity agreement.

Other contributions: Lloyd is director of social media for Young Professionals in Transportation NYC and director of education for the Society of Marketing Professional Services New York.

Tatanisia Lumley

Director of training and operations, Building Skills NY

Scope of work: At the construction workforce development nonpro t Building Skills NY, Tatanisia Lumley serves as director of training and operations. Overseeing as many as 100 students each year, she travels to training facilities to help individuals overcome barriers to employment.

Biggest career win: Lumley spearheaded the establishment of Building Skills NY’s Construction Career Accelerator advanced skills training program. Geared toward New Yorkers who face employment barriers, the program provides no-cost instruction resulting in in-demand certi cations.

Other contributions: Lumley serves on Community Board 3. She is dedicated to advancing opportunities for women in construction and recently served on an Invest in Women leadership panel hosted by the community-based organization Commonpoint.

Linton Mann III

Partner, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett

Scope of work: As a partner at the law rm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Linton Mann III guides litigation matters for clients and helps lead the anti-discrimination and diversity, equity and inclusion advisory practice. He also co-chairs the rm’s recruiting and united for justice committees.

Biggest career win: Mann III was part of a team that represented Toronto-Dominion Bank in a Texas federal court litigation. Serving as a lead of the joint defense group, he helped guide the bank through litigation including appeals and the production of documents and deposition testimony, leading to a successful settlement of all claims.

Other contributions: Mann III serves as chair of the board of trustees for Uncommon Schools New York City.

Tristan Massalay-Ellis

Manager of strategic partnerships, Verra Mobility

Scope of work: Tristan Massalay-Ellis is manager of strategic partnerships at Verra Mobility, a leader in safe mobility technologies. He plays a key role in developing and implementing government relations strategies that achieve company objectives from the Midwest to the eastern seaboard.

Biggest career win: Massalay-Ellis helped write and pass a bill for the New York City Council, New York State Senate and New York State Assembly to increase the number of red-light cameras at city intersections.

Other contributions: Massalay-Ellis has served as a teaching mentor for the Blue Nile program, an out-of-school enrichment initiative where he teaches civics and government. He is also a member of the Queens Chamber of Commerce technology committee.

Shawn McDonald

Senior vice president of legal and business affairs, MLB Players Inc.

Scope of work: Shawn McDonald serves as senior vice president of legal and business affairs for MLB Players Inc. He has led or participated in the organization’s most signi cant strategic partnership business negotiations. McDonald is also involved in collective bargaining and other negotiations with Major League Baseball.

Biggest career win: Shawn was a key member of the negotiating team that solidi ed the largest business deal in the union’s history: the trading card deal with Fanatics.

Other contributions: McDonald counsels people from underrepresented communities with interest in the sports industry. Over the past year he has spoken for Jack and Jill of America and for the Brooklyn Entertainment and Sports Law Society.

HOW YOU MOVE MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

Cynthia McEwen

Head of diversity, equity and inclusion and vice president of people, Progyny

Scope of work: As head of diversity, equity and inclusion and vice president of people at the women’s health bene ts company Progyny, Cynthia McEwen oversees a team that collaborates across departments to spearhead employee well-being initiatives. Her responsibilities include launching Progyny’s rst mentorship program and overseeing its give back program.

Biggest career win: McEwen spearheaded the creation of the rm’s seven employee resource groups, which have in uenced the company to promote forward-thinking bene ts, such as caregiver reimbursement.

Other contributions: McEwen is the founder of The Talent Strategist, a consulting rm dedicated to helping organizations and leaders overcome complex compliance and cultural challenges.

Alicia McFarlane

Executive vice president and chief legal of cer, Samaritan Daytop Village

Scope of work: As Samaritan Daytop Village’s executive vice president and chief legal of cer, Alicia McFarlane ensures sound programmatic management, integration and implementation as well as budget development and legal oversight for a portfolio budget of more than $250 million. She oversees nearly 1,400 direct and indirect reports.

Biggest career win: McFarlane helped increase permanent placements for unhoused individuals in transitional housing sites, surpassing expectations from government funders. She also led the 2023 launch of the organization’s primary care af liate, Samaritan Daytop Health.

Other contributions: McFarlane was appointed to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s behavioral health services advisory council.

Stephanie McGraw

Founder and chief executive of cer, W.A.R.M. (We All Really Matter)

Scope of work: The rst Black woman to create a domestic violence services agency in Harlem, Stephanie McGraw is founder and chief executive of cer of W.A.R.M. (We All Really Matter). The nonpro t provides supportive services such as grief counseling, trauma counseling and a 24-hour hotline for survivors of domestic violence.

Biggest career win: In partnership with more than 20 New York police precincts, McGraw’s nonpro t created a critical response team to serve domestic violence victims.

Other contributions: McGraw is a member of the NYPD’s Domestic and Gender-Based Violence Training Committee and the Bronx borough president’s domestic violence advisory council.

Jonathan McLean

Chief executive of cer, Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES)

Scope of work: Jonathan McLean is chief executive of cer of the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services, a nonpro t that supports individuals involved in the criminal justice system. He oversees program delivery and strategy development, while managing an annual budget of $60 million and leading a 553-person team.

Biggest career win: As a formerly incarcerated Black man, McLean focuses on building organizational culture through consistency and trust. He has supported improvement in staff retention and spurred staff in the development of new equity practices.

Other contributions: McLean serves on the Independent Rikers Commission, appointed by the city council speaker and mayor to help the city close the prison safely.

Clifton R. Wharton Jr., then chief executive of cer of the nancial services organization TIAA-CREF, became the rst Black male CEO of a Fortune 500 company in 1987. (Qualtrics)

Crystal McQueen-Taylor

Executive director, StudentsFirstNY

Scope of work: Crystal McQueen-Taylor is executive director of StudentsFirstNY, an education reform advocacy organization. Leading a team of 14 employees, she manages a multi-million dollar annual operating budget, excluding the $2 million political and electoral budget.

Biggest career win: McQueen-Taylor recently led the effort to successfully restore “zombie” charter schools in New York City. This effort, which combined her expertise in lobbying, organizing, advocacy and communications, overcame strong opposition to deliver the authorization of the rst new downstate charter schools in ve years.

Other contributions: McQueen-Taylor serves as trustee and chair of the advisory committee at Uncommon Schools New York City.

Melva M. Miller

Chief of engagement, The New Terminal One

Scope of work: Melva M. Miller is chief of engagement for The New Terminal One at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Her role was created to foster positive community relationships and drive economic development through local and regional initiatives. Miller’s responsibilities include developing and implementing engagement strategies and partnering with local government of cials, nonpro ts and community organizations.

Biggest career win: In a previous role at the Association for a Better New York, Miller led a citywide 2020 census effort, working to create a diverse coalition to ensure every New Yorker was fairly counted.

Other contributions: Miller volunteers her time to the board of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, NYC Tourism + Conventions and the New York City Regional Economic Development Council.

Morgan Monaco

President and park administrator, Prospect Park Alliance

Scope of work: As president and park administrator for Prospect Park Alliance, the nonpro t that manages the park in partnership with the City of New York, Morgan Monaco leads a workforce of more than 200. She also oversees fundraising and revenue-generating activities.

Biggest career win: Monaco has leveraged her background in both government and social services to lead a new initiative to bring health services to Brooklynites in the park. This includes creating a successful pilot program with the city Health Department, called Open Air Care Connections, which was designed to remove the stigma around mental health care and provide access to services.

Other contributions: Monaco was the recipient of a Robin Hood Power Fund grant.

Krissy Moore

Senior vice president of community relations for the northeast region, Wells Fargo

Scope of work: Krissy Moore, senior vice president of community relations for the northeast region at Wells Fargo, leads a team focused on driving community impact. She works to support nonpro ts and initiatives aligned with Wells Fargo’s national philanthropic focus areas, including nancial health, housing affordability, small business growth and sustainability.

Biggest career win: Moore has successfully overseen philanthropic giving and community development activity and helped expand support of local programs. In 2023 philanthropic giving totaled roughly $19.8 million for New York.

Other contributions: Moore serves on the board of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, as well as on the local advisory committee for Local Initiatives Support Corporation New York.

Anthony Muldrow

Senior director of Verizon Fios PSO, Verizon

Scope of work: At Verizon, Anthony Muldrow is senior director of Verizon Fios PSO. This is a critical role in the Fios Partner Success Organization, directly responsible for key performance indicator results for a broad global partner portfolio for FIOS home and mobile. Muldrow leads the team that builds, maintains and drives results and relationships with current and prospective partners.

Biggest career win: Muldrow grew the sales order pipeline by 10% year over year, enabling revenue to be realized sooner. He developed and implemented enhanced billing and collection procedures for special construction orders that resulted in $3.4 million in past-due revenue. Other contributions: Muldrow is a member of 10 employee resource groups.

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Anthony Munroe

President, Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY

Scope of work: Anthony Munroe is president of Borough of Manhattan Community College/ CUNY, the largest community college in New York City. His responsibilities include crafting innovative programs that cater to the needs of a diverse student population, aimed at equipping students with practical skills and nurturing their critical thinking and personal growth.

Biggest career win: Munroe established a host of unique study- and service-abroad programs at Borough of Manhattan Community College. A partnership agreement he has forged with the Council on International Educational Exchange will further expand opportunities abroad.

Other contributions: Munroe is chair of the board of directors for Community Colleges for International Development.

Madam

Cedric Olivera

Director of urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery, NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health

Scope of work: Cedric Olivera is a physician and serves as director of urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery at NYC Health + Hospitals/South Brooklyn Health. In this role, he provides care for patients with urinary incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse and sexual dysfunction, while also supervising OB-GYN residents and advising them as they develop research projects.

Biggest career win: Olivera’s surgical expertise has allowed him to perform complex procedures utilizing robotic tools at a complication rate of less than 1%.

Other contributions: Olivera is a member of the Society for Gynecologic Surgeons, a fellow of the American College of OB/GYN. He is also an editorial board member of the American Urogynecology Journal.

Tonya Ores

Chief executive officer, NHS Brooklyn (Neighborhood Housing Services of Brooklyn)

Scope of work: Tonya Ores serves as chief executive officer of NHS Brooklyn (Neighborhood Housing Services of Brooklyn) and will soon be transitioning into the role of chief executive officer at Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City. Ores has spent the past 27 years working to create, protect and promote affordable housing. Her role included instituting a host of supportive services, such as an affordable property management program.

Biggest career win: Ores’s efforts have brought more than $68 million in resources for homeownership and opportunities for home preservation grants to Brooklyn residents.

Other contributions: Ores is board president of the New York State Neighborhood Preservation Coalition.

NOTE WORTHY

Stanfort Perry

Chief executive officer, AHRC Nassau, Citizens Options Unlimited and Brookville Center for Children’s Services

Scope of work: Stanfort Perry leads one of the nation’s largest disability service systems, offering a lifetime of support to more than 4,000 children and adults who have developmental disabilities and their families. For nearly a decade, Perry has served as chief executive officer of AHRC Nassau, Citizens Options Unlimited and Brookville Center for Children’s Services, managing a budget of $270 million.

Biggest career win: Perry worked on the opening of Wheatley Farms & Arts Center in Brookville, a multimillion dollar initiative that provides inclusive farming opportunities.

Other contributions: Perry was appointed by Gov. Kathy Hochul to serve on New York State’s Public Health and Health Planning Council.

Wesner Pierre

Chief executive officer, Partnership with Children

Scope of work: As the chief executive officer of Partnership with Children since 2022, Wesner Pierre oversees an organization that has been dedicated to strengthening the emotional, social and cognitive skills of New York City’s youth for well over 100 years. He leads a staff of approximately 200 dedicated changemakers.

Biggest career win: In a previous position, Pierre led the Covid-19 response of the Harlem Children’s Zone, overseeing the distribution of $3.1 million in relief support for families, local food pantries and nonprofits and coordinating a vaccination effort with New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Other contributions: Pierre serves on the Mayor’s Office of Nonprofit Services Advisory Council, the city’s first such gathering. He is also an Aspen fellow.

C.J. Walker, generally considered the first self-made female millionaire in the U.S., opened and operated her hair care business in Harlem during its renaissance in the 1920s.

(History)

Stanley Richards

President and chief executive officer, The Fortune Society

Scope of work: Stanley Richards is president and chief executive officer of the nonprofit The Fortune Society. As a formerly incarcerated person, his efforts are aimed at achieving a future in which his organization can continue to serve those impacted by the criminal justice system. Toward that end, Richards leads more than 500 employees across 16 programs and services, managing an annual budget of $80 million, with net assets worth more than $24 million.

Biggest career win: Winning large government contracts and legislative victories, Richards grew The Fortune Society’s operating budget by 20% in just eight months.

Other contributions: Richards served as first deputy commissioner for the New York City Department of Correction.

Xellex Z. Rivera

Chief program officer, Housing Solutions of New York

Scope of work: Xellex Z. Rivera is chief program officer of Housing Solutions of New York. She is responsible for designing and implementing effective and sustainable programs, including the organization’s shelter programs, emergency housing program and programs related to food. Rivera is a key member of the executive and senior leadership team.

Biggest career win: Rivera wrote a dissertation that was featured in Forbes, and its publication helped advance HSNY’s mission of promoting social change, positioning it as a thought leader in the field of homelessness.

Other contributions: Rivera serves on the board of Christian education for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. She is involved with the Assembly of Christian Education.

Ahsha Rolle

Director of tennis, New York Junior Tennis & Learning

Scope of work: Ahsha Rolle is director of tennis at New York Junior Tennis & Learning, a nonprofit that provides programming to students from underserved communities. She works through training modules, sources coaches and oversees a scholar athlete program that prepares participants for success at Division 1 schools.

Biggest career win: Rolle, a former professional tennis player, has hired several directors and more than 40 coaches. She has also helped to bring on 500 new commercial and community clients in five years.

Other contributions: Rolle serves as a member of the U.S. Tennis Association nominating committee, where she interviews candidates and helps maintain a slate of prospective board members and nominating committee members.

Jeff Scruggs

Head of the public sector and infrastructure group and PSI operating committee within investment banking, Goldman Sachs

Scope of work: Jeff Scruggs is head of the public sector and infrastructure group and the PSI operating committee within investment banking at the investment banking powerhouse Goldman Sachs. He manages a team comprising merger specialists, quantitative analysts and syndicate professionals.

Biggest career win: Scruggs worked on deals including Miami-Dade County’s $534 million water and sewer revenue bonds and tender offer, and Harvard University’s $750 million taxable bond financing.

Other contributions: Scruggs is a chairman of the board of trustees and executive committee of the board at Syracuse University. He is also a member of the advisory board of the Maxwell School.

Kunle Shoyombo

Chief investment officer, Basis Investment Group Equity Investors

Scope of work: As chief investment officer at Basis Investment Group Equity Investors, Kunle Shoyombo oversees the firm’s investment sourcing, production and analysis, along with asset management and capital market activities. In addition, he helms a team that develops and maintains the organization’s investment goals and strategies.

Biggest career win: Shoyombo has assisted in the closing of more than $35 billion in real estate transactions. He has also committed to investing in team development, viewing effective mentorship as a key driver of both individual and organizational success.

Other contributions: Shoyombo participates in a variety of community projects such as youth camps and youth mentorship, church events and environmental, social and governance initiatives.

Tricia Singh

Chief administrative of cer, WellLife Networks

Scope of work: Tricia Singh serves as chief administrative of cer at WellLife Networks, a $300 million agency that helps individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities as well as those with mental health and substance abuse needs. WellLife Networks has been serving New York City and Long Island for nearly 25 years. Singh reports directly to the chief executive of cer and has oversight of human resources, quality assurance, corporate compliance, public affairs and diversity, equity and inclusion. She also assists with budgets.

Biggest career win: Singh boasts more than 17 years of experience in city government.

Other contributions: Singh has led employee groups in Queens and Brooklyn, creating job fairs and interview and résumé workshops.

Alex Smith Jr.

Executive chairman, The Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center

Scope of work: Alex Smith Jr. is executive chairman of The Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center, an organization for African-American and other dance artists of color in New York City. In that role, he has partnered with the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center to preserve The Thelma Hill Performing Arts Center’s history and archives.

Biggest career win: Smith has presented dances by more than 350 Black choreographers and companies of color.

Other contributions: In addition to serving on The Bessies Selection Committee, he provides mentorship to young men at the ManKind Project, a global network of nonpro ts. He also founded the Sankofa Fund to support men’s empowerment and healing.

Shannon Snead

Senior vice president of development, Citymeals on Wheels

Scope of work: Shannon Snead serves as senior vice president of development for Citymeals on Wheels. She leads fundraising, marketing and communications for an organization that delivers more than two million meals annually. Under Snead’s leadership, corporate engagement has increased 40% through holistic partnerships that emphasize volunteerism and nancial support.

Biggest career win: Snead helped launch the organization’s new recommendations on how to end food insecurity among older adults. The brief that emerged, titled “Aging Without Hunger,” increased awareness among New Yorkers, funders and policy makers about the lived experiences of their struggling neighbors.

Other contributions: Snead recruits students of color for Smith College.

Lorraine Stephens

Chief operating of cer, JCCA

Scope of work: As chief operating of cer of JCCA, an organization that provides comprehensive care to thousands of youth and families, Lorraine Stephens is responsible for ensuring the quality of its child welfare, behavioral and educational services. She has also worked to streamline organizational operations.

Biggest career win: Stephens navigated real estate deals that allowed JCCA to set up of ces in Brooklyn and the Bronx which enabled more ef cient care and better outcomes. She is now guiding plans for a new health and wellness center.

Other contributions: Through Lorranisa 11/11 Enterprises, an economic empowerment social enterprise, Stephens helps provide job opportunities, micro loans and grants to economically disadvantaged people in urban and rural areas of Nigeria.

Denise Thompson

Senior associate athletics director for external operations and senior woman administrator, Manhattan College

Scope of work: Denise Thompson is senior associate athletics director for external operations and senior woman administrator at Manhattan College. In addition to overseeing the external operations efforts for 19 Division 1 teams, Thompson has, for the past two years, been responsible for communications, marketing, digital media, development, sponsorships, contracts, ticketing and diversity and inclusion. She is also the sport administrator for women’s basketball, softball, women’s soccer, volleyball, men’s golf and rowing.

Biggest career win: Thompson earned the 2021 College Sports Communicators Presidents’ Award for chairing the racial and social justice working group. Other contributions: Thompson is part of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.

R. Nolan Townsend

Chief executive officer, Lexeo Therapeutics

Scope of work: R. Nolan Townsend has served as chief executive officer of Lexeo Therapeutics and on its board of directors since the company’s founding in 2020. In that time, he has led the company through significant growth, establishing two U.S. offices and hiring 70 employees, of which more than 40% are people of color.

Biggest career win: In 2023, Townsend orchestrated the company’s $100 million initial public offering. He also executed a $95 million equity financing in March 2024, which will ensure the organization’s fiscal health and continued research for years to come.

Other contributions: Townsend serves on the boards of directors of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and of Life Science Cares New York.

Kim Walker

Partner and chief diversity and inclusion officer, Willkie Farr & Gallagher

Scope of work: Kim Walker is a partner and the chief diversity and inclusion officer at the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher. She is also a member of the firm’s executive committee.

Biggest career win: Walker was instrumental in the creation of the firm’s task force on retention and inclusion. Over the past five years, partnership classes in the U.S. have averaged approximately 42% women and 27% diverse attorneys. Under Walker’s leadership, the firm was awarded a 2023 Gold Standard Certification from the Women in Law Empowerment Forum.

Other contributions: Walker is involved with the Legal Aid Society and the advisory council of the New York State Mentoring Program.

As CEO of Partnership with Children, Wesner Pierre is on the front lines of getting young people the mental health and wellness services they deserve. His staff of social workers, youth development specialists, and teaching artists are embedded in 47 public schools across NYC providing traumainformed counseling, community-based programming, and healing-based arts education. Through this holistic approach, PWC addresses the unique challenges of communities of color, empowers students to build the skills necessary to break cycles of poverty, and impacts over 21,000 children and families a year.

Pierre, who grew up in NYC’s South Jamaica, Queens, has devoted his career to enabling young people to become advocates for their communities. He has built and scaled programs that have enabled tens of thousands of students and families to thrive through community support, after-school education, and career preparedness. Currently, as an adjunct professor at the CUNY SPS Master Program in Youth Studies, he is empowering the next generation of New Yorkers.

Crain’s Content Studio caught up with him recently to learn more about his work at PWC and beyond.

Wendell Walters

Executive vice president and chief housing officer, Osborne Association

Scope of work: Wendell Walters serves as the executive vice president and chief housing officer for Osborne Association, a nonprofit that aids individuals affected by the criminal legal system. Walters oversees the development process, strategic planning and service delivery for the organization’s housing programs as well as its housing-related real estate ventures.

Biggest career win: Walters frequently visits Albany to advocate for the need for more re-entry housing for individuals after incarceration, and under his leadership, Osborne Association has expanded its housing portfolio to serve the needs of those people.

Other contributions: Walters mentors previously incarcerated individuals, specifically Black and Latino New Yorkers.

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Demetrius Warrick

Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

Scope of work: Demetrius Warrick is a partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and is counsel of choice in complex transactions. Clients he has represented on mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions include Fed-Ex, Mars Inc. and Dentsply Sirona.

Biggest career win: Warrick is the first Black partner in Skadden’s mergers and acquisitions group. He assists colleagues from historically underrepresented backgrounds, both at Skadden through participation in an affinity network for Black lawyers and in the broader legal industry. Other contributions: Warrick identifies and invests in the next generation of Skadden attorneys, working with partners to create and teach mergers and acquisitions programs to law students at multiple universities.

In 1969, Constance Baker Motley became the first Black woman appointed to a lifetime judgeship under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, serving as a U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York. (United States District Court) NOTE

NOTABLE SPOTLIGHT with Wesner Pierre

A youth-services visionary prioritizes mental health for the City’s young people

At Partnership with Children (PWC), you and your team support the comprehensive mental health needs of children across all ve boroughs of NYC, bridging inequities and removing barriers to success. What got you into this work?

I see myself in our students. I grew up in South Jamaica, Queens, where so many families were dealing with intergenerational racism, nancial scarcity, and the perception that they just couldn’t get ahead. I understand how young people can be impacted by trauma due to the insidious effects of poverty outside their control.

I also was blessed by a mother and grandmother who embodied great faith and courage. They taught us to be resourceful and to believe in ourselves, teachings I strive to honor as the foundation of my commitment to the children we serve.

What are the biggest challenges that you see young people facing right now?

Youth mental health is this generation’s de ning issue. Our actions today will impact a generation of young people and shape the future of NYC. One in ve of our students has frequent mental health distress.

PWC is meeting this profound moment with a team of compassionate and quali ed professionals. Together with our schools, families, and neighborhood resources, they are getting our young people on a path to success in school and life.

What are some examples of how you are meeting the moment?

We start with the foundation of mental health support offered by our social workers, who meet with children in our nurturing PWC Wellness rooms, where they get the support they need, discuss their feelings and join a support system of peers. PWC’s culturallycompetent staff share language and lived experiences and go the extra mile to remove barriers to success, meeting essential family needs with food pantries, laundry rooms, vision screening, and parent resource rooms

You started your work in education and youth development. How did that experience shape the work you are doing today?

Education and youth development attracted me while I was preparing to teach at the university level. I had the opportunity to work at a program— in the Queens community center I attended in my youth—to mentor

young people sidelined by juvenile detention and helping them to attain a high school equivalency diploma. We placed them on a path to success by caring about and inspiring their potential. My purpose became clear: instilling in youth that their circumstances do not de ne them.

You are the rst leader of color of this 116-year-old nonpro t. How are you reshaping the organization?

It’s an honor to helm this organization for the next generation. My identity demonstrates PWC’s core value of equity and connects us to a broader constituency of stakeholders.

Even more importantly, as a culture bearer, I am committed to inspiring our staff and school partners to bring their whole selves to work and encouraging this in their colleagues. Equity occurs when we normalize seeing people for who they are and support them in achieving social and economic mobility, happiness, and self-worth.

Jelani Watkins

Chief financial officer and chief diversity officer, Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation

Scope of work: Jelani Watkins has served as chief financial officer for the past eight years and as chief diversity officer for the past four at the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation. He supervises financial operations while overseeing a budget of $15 million.

Watkins also led the design of the organization’s first diversity, equity and inclusion strategy.

Biggest career win: Watkins implemented a comprehensive financial system at the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation which streamlined financial operations, improved budget management and enhanced financial reporting accuracy, all of which has contributed to the organization’s overall fiscal sustainability.

Other contributions: Watkins currently serves on the board of a nonprofit early childhood education center.

Rachel Watts Executive director, ArtsConnection

Scope of work: In her role as executive director of ArtsConnection, Rachel Watts leads an internal staff of 25 — as well as more than 120 teaching artists — in providing arts education programming in schools, after school and at cultural institutions across New York City.

Biggest career win: Watts is the only person from an arts organization on Mayor Eric Adams’ inaugural nonprofit advisory council. The council is charged with discussing the challenges and opportunities facing the nonprofit sector, developing strategies for capacity-building and advocating for policies that will help nonprofits thrive.

Other contributions: Watts has served two different terms on the board of the New York City Arts in Education Roundtable, a community of arts education practitioners.

Ather Williams III

Senior executive vice president, head of strategy, digital, innovation and enterprise payments, Wells Fargo

Scope of work: Ather Williams III is senior executive vice president, head of strategy, digital, innovation and enterprise payments and a member of the operating committee at Wells Fargo. He leads thousands of professionals across the organization’s businesses, capabilities and functions, building strategic plans and driving digital transformation.

Biggest career win: Williams III has transformed the way customers and clients interact with Wells Fargo through a comprehensive digital overhaul that significantly enhanced services for more than 35 million digitally active users and has redefined employee workflows.

Other contributions: Williams III serves on the board of directors for Blue Shield of California.

Darlene Williams

President and chief executive officer, Union Settlement

Scope of work: Darlene Williams oversees operations as president and chief executive officer of Union Settlement, a 400-employee social services organization that serves as a community anchor in East Harlem. Williams’ mandate includes overseeing all programs, developing management systems and maintaining the organization’s fiscal responsibility.

Biggest career win: Williams is the first person of color in Union Settlement’s nearly 130-year history to be charged with heading the organization and furthering its mission of providing essential services and opportunities.

Other contributions: Williams is on the board of trustees at Metropolitan College of New York. She is also involved with several city and state boards and private civic organizations. She teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Dominic Williams

Associate partner, McKinsey & Company

Scope of work: As an associate partner at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, Dominic Williams leads teams that help local communities create economic opportunity and growth. He achieves those goals through both run-of-job client service and his work with the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility.

Biggest career win: Williams led support for a multi-year effort that provided post-pandemic support to more than 5.5 million students in 30 states and districts by deploying federal funds that accelerated learning, bolstered student wellbeing and measured impact. Other contributions: Williams has co-authored research on the geography of equity and economic opportunity for Black and Latino residents across the U.S. He serves on the board of the Brooklyn Public Library.

Sonja Williams

Director, YAI

Scope of work: At YAI, which provides various services for children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Sonja Williams is the director of YAI Knowledge, the organization’s training department. Overseeing a team of 19 employees and an annual budget of more than $1 million, Williams works with her team to ensure that all YAI staff members are in compliance with regulatory trainings. They also offer skill-enhancement trainings to nonpro ts, foreign governments and police departments.

Biggest career win: During the Covid-19 pandemic, Williams added training on mental health and vaccines. In addition, she streamlined YAI’s pre-service training so program positions could be lled more quickly.

Other contributions: Williams provides additional training through church af liations.

Marco Williamson

Managing director of construction, Fairstead

Scope of work: Marco Williamson joined Fairstead in 2020 and is now managing director of the real estate organization’s construction arm. Overseeing a team of more than 20 professionals and dozens of sub-contractors, he completes affordable housing preservation and rehabilitation projects.

Biggest career win: Williamson has been leading Fairstead’s $635 million PACT construction project in Brooklyn. This project, comprising 1,696 units in a scattered-site portfolio of 87 buildings, bolsters Fairstead’s growth in the public housing revitalization space, with a pipeline of deals nationwide.

Other contributions: Williamson volunteers at the Westside Montessori School and the Marcus Meets Malcolm organization and is also secretary on the executive committee of the board of trustees at the Hewitt School.

Ken Win eld

Director of compliance, Turner Construction

Scope of work: As director of compliance for Turner Construction, Ken Win eld leads the development, implementation and enhancement of compliance policies, programs and practices across domestic and international business units for a company that completes $15 billion worth of projects annually.

Biggest career win: Under Win eld’s direction, Turner Construction moved from a reactive and externally focused compliance model to a more proactive and integrated one, resulting in the company achieving ISO 37001 and 37301 certi cations.

Other contributions: Win eld is a member of the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics. He also volunteers at God’s Love We Deliver, an organization that prepares and delivers meals for ill New York City residents.

Rudolph Wynter

President, National Grid New York

Scope of work: As the president of National Grid New York, Rudolph Wynter has led more than 8,000 employees in serving more than four million customers. He oversees National Grid’s electric and gas businesses and the company’s clean energy transition. Over Wynter’s tenure, National Grid has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades.

Biggest career win: As part of Wynter’s rollout of technology to increase clean energy transmission capacity and reliability, National Grid has become the largest interconnector of community solar in the state. Other contributions: Wynter serves on the board of the Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation. In the past, he served on the board of the United Way of New York City.

NOTE WORTHY

3,000

On Juneteenth 2019, the New York City Department of Small Business Services launched Shop Black NYC, an online business directory that highlights more than 3,000 Black-owned businesses in the city. (Black Enterprise)

Empowering People. Building Futures.

New bribery probe into Adams’ administration eyes a leading real estate firm that handles city leases

By Nick Garber and C. J. Hughes

A new bribery investigation into Eric Adams’ administration has swept up a leading real estate firm that handles city leases and two senior officials who are longtime friends of the mayor.

Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg’s office seized phones on Sept. 27 belonging to the mayor’s chief adviser, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, as well as a city official involved in commercial leases and an executive at Cushman & Wakefield who works with the city on those leases. A search warrant stated that investigators were seeking documents and communications related to possible bribery and money laundering, Lewis-Martin’s attorney, Arthur Aidala, confirmed to Crain’s The new probe, details of which were first reported Oct. 9 by The New York Times, means there are now at least five different investigations ensnaring Adams and his aides, including the federal case related to Turkish influence for which the mayor was indicted. The newly revealed probe, however, is the first being carried out by a state prosecutor and the first with a direct connection to New York’s real estate industry.

Lewis-Martin, known as the mayor’s right hand in City Hall, had her phone seized at JFK International Airport as she returned from a vacation to Japan along with Jesse Hamilton, a deputy commissioner in charge of real estate at the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services, and Diana Boutross, a vice chair at Cushman & Wakefield, whose devices were also taken.

The D.A.’s investigators were also seen taking documents from Lewis-Martin’s Brooklyn home the same day.

Nobody has been accused of wrongdoing in the probe; Aidala told Crain’s he was confident that

“when this investigation is concluded, it will show that there was no wrongdoing by my client, Ingrid Lewis-Martin.” A City Hall spokesman referred questions to Aidala. Boutross, whose firm helped land a blockbuster deal between the city and a Lower Manhattan landlord in 2023, did not immediately return a call for comment. But Cushman spokesman Michael Boonshoft defended the firm’s work in an emailed statement:

“We have a longstanding, 15-year relationship with the city that spans across multiple mayoral administrations, and we are proud of the important work we’ve done for DCAS.”

Three meetings

Diana Boutross, who has worked at Cushman & Wakefield since 2015 and has risen to the top job of vice chair, has mostly focused on retail deals on behalf of major New York landlords such as the Durst Organization, Wharton Properties and L+M Development Partners, according to her biography on Cushman & Wakefield’s website. She’s also worked for the Trump Organization, it says.

Lewis-Martin and Boutross are friends. Between 2022 and August 2023, Boutross appeared three times in Lewis-Martin’s government schedule, including an August 2022 dinner at Casa Cipriani that was also expected to include Michael Cayre, a scion of real estate firm Midtown Equities. Lewis-Martin also had a full Saturday in August 2023 blocked out for Boutross, according to a copy of her calendar obtained through a public records request.

Boutross has also reportedly fundraised for Adams and donated a combined $10,000 to his 2021 mayoral campaign, city records show. (The campaign refunded $8,000 of that money, presumably

to comply with a $2,000 legal limit for individual donations.)

Boutross’s earlier career is notable for its overseas ties. According to her website, Boutross was involved with the sale of 1 E. 42nd St., a Midtown office building controlled by the Greek government from 1992 until 2005, when it was purchased for $30 million by a Taiwanese economic agency, the city register shows.

And prior to entering the real estate industry, she worked for the international consulting firm of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, her biography says.

ment of City Planning.

Previously, the building’s co-owners, New York developer Savanna and California-based Pacific Oak Capital Advisors, were struggling with many empty floors at 110 William and had defaulted

“When you look at the numbers, you’re going to see that actually Boutross and Jesse Hamilton, working together, wound up saving the city a ton of money. There’s nothing untoward going on.”

It’s not clear what, if any, deals Boutross might have worked on in regard to city leases, which are an apparent focus of the D.A. probe. Boonshoft, the Cushman spokesman, did not respond to specific questions about Boutross’s career path, but told the Times that Boutross shifted from retail to a new role in October 2023 that involves helping the city find office and industrial space.

A big lease downtown

Cushman & Wakefield has longstanding ties to city government, including a $40 million contract with DCAS dating back to 2014 for the maintenance of a Bronx facility that handles 911 calls. Cushman has also represented the city when it rents space, including in one of the biggest office transactions of the past few years: a 2023 lease for 640,000 square feet at 110 William St. in the Financial District. The lease encompasses 25 of the 31 floors of the postwar tower, according to a filing with the Depart-

Arthur Aidala, attorney Baratta, Baratta & Aidala LLP

on a mortgage. The city real estate agency, DCAS, negotiated the deal on behalf of the Administration for Children’s Services, which needed the space because, with 2,500 employees, it had outgrown its existing offices at 150 William St., filings show.

The building’s owners lobbied Hamilton, the DCAS official, and other city officials about 110 William in early 2023, according to public records — part of a multiyear retainer that the landlords have held with top lobbying firm Kasirer. The city signed the lease in June 2023: a blockbuster 20-year deal that reportedly called for the city to spend $44 per square foot per year to start, which is an annual rent of about $28 million. The average asking rent for Manhattan office buildings that summer was about $75 per square foot.

Representing the city in the deal was Robert Giglio, a vice chairman at Cushman, according to news reports from the time. A lawyer by

training, Giglio has represented DCAS in its lease transactions for years, his biography says. Giglio, who has been with the firm since 1997, “manages a nine-member team responsible for over 11 million square feet of city leases,” it reads. He did not return a call for comment, and his connection with Boutross wasn’t immediately clear. Aidala, the lawyer for Lewis-Martin, said that Boutross’s work for Cushman has been part of its existing retainer with the city, not any new relationship under Adams.

“When you look at the numbers, you’re going to see that actually Boutross and Jesse Hamilton, working together, wound up saving the city a ton of money. There’s nothing untoward going on,” Aidala said.

Hamilton, a friend of Adams, is a former state senator who was elected in 2014 to the Brooklyn seat that Adams once held. After he was defeated for re-election in 2018 by Zellnor Myrie — who is now challenging Adams for mayor — Hamilton joined the Adams administration in August 2022 as a legal counsel to DCAS.

Hamilton was promoted later that year to deputy commissioner of real estate services at DCAS and received an unusual 12% raise to reach a salary of $213,783, the Daily News reported at the time.

Hamilton’s job entails managing city-owned space as well as leases with private landlords, encompassing about 37 million square feet that the city owns or rents, according to his biography on the DCAS website.

Eddie Small contributed reporting.

Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the chief adviser to Mayor Eric Adams, had her phone seized in a new bribery probe that also involves a Cushman & Wakefield executive and a city official in charge of real estate. | MICHAEL APPLEtON/MAYORAL PHOtOGRAPHY OFFICE

Jesse Hamilton, a former state senator and friend of Eric Adams, now leads the division of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services responsible for the city’s real estate holdings. NYS SENAtE MEDIA SERVICES

The industries that drive New York – and the city itself – are at a major crossroads. What kind of city do we want to be? How will business drive the future of housing, work, health care, climate change, technology, arts and transportation in the Big Apple? Crain’s New York Business & Partnership for New York City will dive deep into the innovations, challenges and pivotal developments that will inspire the city’s reinvention over the next 50 years.

pied. Tenants in the two buildings range from Uber to Spotify to McKinsey, according to commercial real estate database CoStar..

of the project. Company Chairman Larry Silverstein also detailed a few of the setbacks in his recent book on the topic. The sheer amount of hurdles can sometimes make the project seem cursed, but Lynne Sagalyn, a Columbia Business School professor and author of the book Power at Ground Zero, said it has merely been the victim of a tough market.

“I don’t think it’s a jinxed site,” she said. “Silverstein as a company is well established and knows how to run these kinds of buildings, knows how to build them. I think it’s purely competition.”

Money matters

Silverstein Properties famously acquired the World Trade Center for $3.2 billion in 2001, just six weeks before the 9/11 attacks destroyed the site. It announced a deal with the city, the state and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to rebuild Ground Zero in 2010 after 18 months of negotiations.

Despite other buildings rising on the site, tower 2 has remained in limbo because it has been seeking an anchor tenant for more than a decade.

One of the main reasons it needs a tenant before construction can begin is its finances. The tower received a relatively small amount of subsidies compared to the ones for towers 3 and 4, according to Sagalyn, who described this as the fundamental difference among the projects’ progress.

“Tower 2 was always to stand on its own financially,” she said. “There are some subsidies in there, but they’re not cash subsidies.”

Towers 3 and 4 both received significant support from tax-free federal Liberty Bonds meant to help the rebuilding efforts following the 9/11 attacks. Tower 3 received $978 million from the program, while tower 4 received about $1.4 billion, Sagalyn’s book notes. Tower 3 is close to 90% leased, while Tower 4 is close to fully occu-

Silverstein acknowledged in The Rising, his recently published book about the long and ongoing effort to rebuild the World Trade Center, that he did not have the luxury of using Liberty Bonds at tower 2, which was part of the outcome of the 2010 negotiations to finance the sites. The thinking was that giving more subsidies to towers 3 and 4 would at least help those buildings get up quickly, which would be a better result than evenly distributing the subsidies among the three towers and potentially having all of them struggle to get off the ground.

“The important objective was to move the project forward, show momentum,” said Sagalyn.

The firm more recently explored trying to build it with $3.9 billion from the federal Department of Transportation’s railroad rehabilitation and improvement financing fund, given its connections to mass transit, Silverstein wrote. A spokesman for the company declined to comment on the status of this effort.

Silverstein has invested about $10 billion in the World Trade Center complex so far. The firm did not provide an estimated cost for the latest version of 2 World Trade Center, although a 2015 New York Post article put it at $4 billion. The Spiral, a similarly massive Hudson Yards office building from Tishman Speyer that recently opened, is estimated to have cost between $3.2 billion and $3.7 billion.

Try, try again

The latest chatter is that credit card giant American Express is in talks to be the anchor, but as of press time, this was still just speculation. Amex is already based in Lower Manhattan, at 200 Vesey St., and is looking into relocating its headquarters. The Real Deal reported in September that the company might decide where to move as soon as that month, although one source familiar with the negotiations told Crain’s at the time

there was “no chance” of that happening so quickly.

“I think there’s a real shot at it, but it’s not imminent,” the source said, noting that any actual move would still be seven or eight years away. He gave the move a 50/50 shot of happening. September ultimately came and went without a deal.

“Tower 2 was always to stand on its own financially. There are some subsidies in there, but they’re not cash subsidies.”

James didn’t like what architect Norman + Foster had proposed and brought in Bjarke Ingels to redo it, only for Silverstein himself and Rupert to balk at the redesign — but all of them eventually got on board, the book says. However, on the last possible day that the companies could back out of the deal, Rupert Murdoch called Silverstein to do just that, an experience that Silverstein wrote left him “devastated” and “deeply depressed.”

Lynne Sagalyn, Columbia Business School professor and author of the book Power at Ground Zero

Larry Silverstein did not get into the rumors at an event with reporters in September, saying only, “Keep tuned. Stuff is happening.”

A spokesman for the company also declined to comment for this story, while an American Express spokeswoman confirmed that the company is exploring a move but has not made any decisions yet.

Silverstein delves into the tortured history of the anchor hunt in The Rising

He wrote that he did not expect the search to be particularly difficult and thought he had landed Citigroup in 2013 but was “blindsided” by its board of directors’ decision to reject the move at the last minute.

“They worried that the bank had barely managed to stay afloat in the rough seas of the 2008-10 financial crisis,” he wrote. “It was too soon after that unsteady time to make such an expensive corporate relocation.”

The next near miss came a few years later, courtesy of 21st Century Fox and News Corp. James Murdoch, who is now reportedly engaged in a contentious succession battle with his father, Rupert Murdoch, felt that the new tower would be a perfect fit for the companies, which signed a letter of intent in June 2015 to take 1.5 million square feet of space. There was a hiccup over its design —

“‘Larry, it’s just that I feel the economy is terribly fragile at this moment. It wouldn’t be the best thing for my company to take on something like this,’” the elder Murdoch said, according to The Rising. Silverstein went on to write: “We went back and forth a bit, but at last I had no choice but to say, ‘Thank you for your candor. That’s life, I guess.’”

The housing factor

It is much harder now to find any tenant to anchor any new office tower than it was during Silverstein’s two prior near misses. The ongoing fallout from the pandemic has turned the city’s office market upside down, and Lower Manhattan in particular has been hit with high vacancy rates and low rents. This is playing a huge role in Silverstein’s difficulty finding a taker, particularly given the massive footprint a company would need to lease to anchor a tower the size of 2 World Trade Center, sources said.

Residential conversions are one popular answer for how to deal with the city’s glut of office space, and Silverstein made clear at his September event with reporters that he is a believer in them. His company is working on one conversion with Metro Loft Management downtown at 55 Broad St., and he spoke vaguely but approvingly of bringing housing directly to the World Trade Center campus as well, describing it as a project “for tomorrow.”

Residential units are already

coming to one of the towers in the complex, 5 World Trade Center.

The building, which Silverstein is developing with fellow real estate giant Brookfield Properties, will include about 1,200 apartments and was at the center of a high-profile campaign last year to make all of them affordable. Officials ultimately reached a deal to make about one-third of the units permanently affordable for households earning between 40% and 120% of the area median income, or about $56,000 to $168,000 for a family of three.

The Coalition for a 100% Affordable 5WTC was the main community group advocating for more affordable housing there. Mariama James, a steering committee member, said the group has “absolutely” talked about pushing for housing at 2 World Trade Center as well.

“I think that we should all see the writing on the wall that commercial is largely dead in terms of huge brick-and-mortar spaces,” she said. “Affordable housing, on the other hand, remains a grave need, particularly here in Lower Manhattan.”

It would be healthy to have more residential space downtown from an urban planning perspective, but figuring out how to do this at the 2 World Trade Center site specifically would likely be technically and legally challenging, Sagalyn told Crain’s. And multiple people familiar with the site were skeptical that it could work, saying the scale of doing a residential project at a development site of this size would not be manageable. However it would come to be, Silverstein, now 93, has shown few signs of slowing down in pursuit of 2 World Trade. Although his moves to part with longtime executive Marty Burger and name his daughter, Lisa Silverstein, CEO late last year seem to indicate that he has an eye on the company’s future without him, he is still relentlessly promoting the project and trying to find a way to get it built.

“It makes me feel like a kid again,” he wrote in his book about the prospect of finally developing the tower. “Or at least 70.”

The World Trade Center skyline (left) without the 2 World Trade Center building, and (right) a rendering of the latest design for 2 World Trade Center. BUCK ENNIS, VISUALHOUSE

DONATIONS

when news broke that federal agents had seized phones from several top administration officials. Although more than 300 people gave to Adams’ campaign in July and August, only 26 people donated after those September

Adams has nearly exhausted all the money he has raised since he formed the trust — having received $1.8 million but spent $1.7 million.

raids, and a single person donated after Sept. 25, when news broke of his expected indictment.

But the mayor, who has been fundraising for his re-election since 2022, maintains a $4 million war chest that dwarfs those of his opponents. If his campaign is awarded the additional $4 million in public matching funds that it expects to receive, it will have all the money it needs for the 2025 Democratic primary, which has a $7.9 million spending cap.

Representatives for Adams’ campaign downplayed his light haul, saying he had stopped ac-

tively fundraising once he had enough to surpass the spending limit. But it isn’t certain that the city’s Campaign Finance Board will award Adams the full $4 million he is counting on. Auditors have already flagged hundreds of improperly recorded donations to Adams’ 2025 campaign, which could mean they will decline to grant the typical $8-to-$1 match for donations below $250. And one city councilman has called on the CFB to refuse Adams any matching funds at all, citing the allegations in the federal indictment that the mayor fraudulently obtained those public dollars during his 2021 campaign.

“I always step up to the plate to do what is required,” Adams said Oct. 15, appearing to acknowledge that he may need to resume fundraising. “And if there’s a requirement for me to do something else, I’m going to step up to the plate and do that.”

Defense fund runs dry

A similar picture emerged hours later Oct. 15, when Adams disclosed his latest fundraising for the legal defense fund he created last November to defray his attorneys’ costs amid what are now five known probes.

Although the mayor faces mounting bills from the two ex-

pensive law firms he has hired to defend him, Adams’ fund raised just $92,500 from 23 donors between July and September, far less than he had reported in previous three-month cycles. The fund spent nearly $497,000, mostly to pay attorneys from the firm WilmerHale.

In total, Adams has nearly exhausted all the money he has raised since he formed the trust — having received $1.8 million but spent $1.7 million.

Much like his campaign account, Adams has not actively solicited donations for the legal trust in recent months, but he expects to step up those efforts soon, a person familiar with those plans told Crain’s. He may need to work quickly: The latest filing does not even show the presumably steep

costs Adams is incurring from Quinn Emanuel, the second firm he has brought on to represent him in the wake of his Sept. 25 indictment; the firm has been known to charge as much as $2,000 per hour.

“The trust has already raised nearly $2 million, and we expect more as the mayor’s defense enters a new stage,” Adams’ compliance attorney Vito Pitta said in a statement.

“Interest is strong.”

Help from the Dolans

The prominent investors and real estate developers who have previously powered Adams’ campaigns were mostly absent from both new disclosures. Instead, his latest campaign donors included a school-bus company owner, a scrap-metal business founder and an NYPD sergeant.

Among those who donated the maximum $2,100 each to Adams’ campaign during the latest period were James Dolan, the Madison Square Garden owner, and Richard Baker, chairman and CEO of the Hudson’s Bay Company — which owns Saks Fifth Avenue and is vying for a casino license. So

were the theater producer James Nederlander and real estate developer Zelig Weiss.

As for the defense fund, Dolan lent support on that front as well, contributing the maximum $5,000 — along with identical contributions from his father Charles, two of his children, and two other MSG executives.

Billionaire investor Daniel Loeb and his wife, Margaret, each also gave $5,000 to the defense fund. So did Andrew Barrocas, the founder and CEO of real estate firm MNS, and Joseph Koicim, a broker for Marcus & Millichap. But some well-known names who supported the mayor during his first campaign did not show up in either of the new filings. Real estate developers Sergey Rybak and Jed Walentas had both donated to Adams at this stage in the 2021 primary, but neither has donated to his 2025 campaign so far. (Adams reaped a combined $7,800 in 2021 from nine employees of Walentas’ firm Two Trees Management, but no company employees have donated to his re-election campaign.)

Three members of real estate’s Durst family donated to Adams in the 2021 primary, including company chairman Douglas, but none have given to his re-election. Other 2021 Adams donors who have not yet supported his re-election include New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, Empire State Realty Trust CEO Anthony Malkin, and Thor Equities chairman Joseph Sitt.

James Dolan donated the maximum $2,100 to Adams’ campaign. | GettY IMAGeS

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Rockefeller Center gets $3.5B re nancing at a steep price

By Aaron Elstein

Rockefeller Center re nanced its mortgage in a massive $3.5 billion transaction.

e deal closed on Oct. 18 and is a triumph for the owners of the 7 million square-foot o ce and retail complex, Tishman Speyer and Henry Crown & Co. It comes at a moment when owners are unable to re nance debts or are defaulting on obligations at other land-

phy property,” said Ruth ColpHaber, CEO of Wharton Property Advisors, a rm that represents tenants looking for space.

But the re nancing’s terms show that Rockefeller Center’s owners have had to pay a big price for a shorter-term loan.

e new mortgage’s interest rate is 6.5%, according to a report Oct. 15 from credit-rating rm

Rockefeller Center’s annual mortgage-interest costs would more than double, to $225 million from $95 million, thanks to the higher interest rate and larger loan balance.

marked Midtown o ce towers, including the Helmsley Building, 500 Fifth Ave., and the Chrysler Building.

“Rockefeller Center’s re nancing is a big vote of con dence in New York and in this unique tro-

KBRA. at is higher than the older $1.7 billion loan’s 5.6%, according to S&P Global, and indicates Rockefeller Center’s annual mortgage-interest costs would more than double, to $225 million from $95 million, thanks to the higher interest rate and larger loan balance. If rates were to fall over the next ve years, the owners of the complex could shop for a less expensive mortgage, but if rates rise they face the prospect of even higher borrowing costs.

In addition, the new mortgage would come due in just ve years, a big drop from the existing 20year loan. e shorter loan term was dictated by the institutional investors who have agreed to buy

the Rockefeller Center mortgage after it’s originated, Colp-Haber said.

Tishman Speyer declined to comment.

e developer acquired Rockefeller Center out of bankruptcy for $1.2 billion in 1995, joining Goldman Sachs, Gianni Agnelli and Stavros Niarchos to outbid Sam Zell. Tishman Speyer’s 82 million square-foot global portfolio includes 200 Park Ave.’s MetLife Building and 520 Madison Ave.

The complex is 93% leased

Rockefeller Center’s 13 buildings rest on land leased by Columbia University to John D. Rockefeller in 1928. e towers house U.S. headquarters for NBC, Christie’s, Deloitte, Lazard, Simon & Schuster and Tishman Speyer. e complex is 93% leased to more than 400 tenants, KBRA said, better than the Chrysler Building’s 86%, 500 Fifth’s 80%, or the Helmsley Building’s 70%.

But even Rockefeller Center’s fortunes have taken a hit in recent years. Net rental revenue of nearly $500 million last year was $65 mil-

lion below 2019 levels, KBRA said. Proceeds from the new mortgage, originated by Bank of America and Wells Fargo, will pay down $3 billion in existing debt and fund a $250 million reserve fund to cover the costs of free rent and other services for new tenants. Another $180 million in cash will be distributed to Tishman Speyer and Crown.

In the last ve years the owners have invested more than $400 million to turn the o ce complex into a more tourist-friendly attraction.

ey’re turning nine oors at 10 Rockefeller Plaza into a hotel that’s expected to open in 2026. ey’ve also redeveloped retail space around the skating rink and at the observatory, known as Top of the Rock. Last December the Beam Experience opened, which allows visitors to sit on a replica of a construction beam on the 69th oor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. is month marked the debut of Skylift, which lifts visitors on a glass platform 30 feet above the 70th oor of 30 Rock.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12 8:30-10 a.m.

Rockefeller Center | BUCK ENNIS

Andrew Kimball PRESIDENT

Related sells Williamsburg rental building at a 53% loss

By C. J. Hughes

Another apartment building has traded at a major loss.

The same week that a Brooklyn Heights rental went for less than it cost in the face of refinancing challenges, the developer The Related Cos. has sold a Williamsburg rental with a haircut of 53%.

The building, 442 Lorimer St., a 6-story structure with 54 apartments, about 15 of which are rent-regulated, went for $12 mil-

neighborhood.

One of the world’s largest, best-capitalized and most seasoned developers, Related may have been derailed by some of the same headwinds facing investors of all shapes and sizes in the multifamily sector.

Well-laid plans to refinance debt before it matures have often fizzled in a lending market in which interest rates are still high, even after the Federal Reserve made a big move to bring them down, some owners say.

The developer paid $26 million for 442 Lorimer St. in 2016 and unloaded it for $12 million this month.

lion, according to the city register, eight years after Related—technically, an affiliate, the investor arm Related Fund Management— bought it for $25.5 million. The deal went into contract June 10 and closed Oct. 2, according to a deed that appeared in the register Oct. 10.

The buyer of the prewar walk-up at Maujer Street was Palladium Property Group, a firm founded and helmed by Nathan Obstfeld, who owns similar buildings in the

At the same time, the effects of a series of pro-renter laws, ranging from 2019’s Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act to this year’s Good Cause Eviction Act, have wrecked some landlords’ strategies to hike rents on rent-regulated units as they become vacant, a playbook successfully executed for years.

What exactly Related had in mind for the property, which also has a handful of leased groundfloor storefronts, is unknown. Kathleen Corless, a company spokeswoman, had no comment.

But the sale of 442 Lorimer, where a market-rate two-bedroom was listed for about $4,000 a month in August, suggests the de-

veloper’s business plan for the site came up short.

More than just a place to live, 442 Lorimer seems a vivid symbol of the real estate speculation that’s intensified in the multifamily sector in recent years. Indeed, the building has changed hands four times in about a decade, with each seller managing to notch a notable profit, at least until this month’s transaction.

First sold for $10.5 million

Owned by the Hernandez family for about four decades, 442 Lorimer first came under the sway of development companies with its 2013 sale to BCB Property Management, a firm presided over by Debrah Lee Chatratan, for $10.5 million, according to the register.

Just two years later, as a boom was nearing its peak, BCB unloaded the property for $22.8 million to New Jersey-based Urban American Management, though that developer barely held No. 442 for a year, offloading it to Related in 2016 for $25.5 million, records show.

The building’s current owner, Obstfeld, who borrowed $9 million from Pennsylvania-based Customers Bank to finance his acquisition, plans to “hold the building and manage it properly,” he

told Crain’s. “I feel like Williamsburg is a strong location and getting better over time.”

Obstfeld also owns 70 Wyckoff Ave., a 52-unit rental for which he paid $12.8 million during the summer, and 750 Grand St., a 23-unit property that cost him $13.3 million in 2022.

Related, meanwhile, may be best known for splashy Manhattan

developments, including the West Side megacomplex Hudson Yards.

The company, whose CEO is Jeff Blau, also recently purchased Midtown high-rise 625 Madison Ave. from SL Green Realty. But Related also dabbles in smaller sites, such as 321 W. 44th St., a modest Times Square office building that the same affiliate sold in June for a 67% loss.

442 Lorimer St., Williamsburg | GOOGLE StREEt VIEW

Journalist becomes an ER nurse to take a different pulse of the city

The longtime editor of City Limits began taking courses for his new eld in the early days of the pandemic

Jarrett Murphy, the former longtime editor of nonpro t news site City Limits, has a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of New York’s neighborhoods from his years snooping around them. After the better part of 20 years pounding the pavement, he decided he needed a new angle.

“ e signs were indicating that I needed to take maybe a di erent path,” he said.

In 2021 Murphy traded in his notebooks and tape recorder for scrubs and a stethoscope and committed himself to the ranks of nurses keeping the city healthy. For the past two years he has treated patients in the emergency department of Mount Sinai Hospital on the Upper East Side, seeing “a lot of the same New Yorkers who I spoke to as sources.”

He had been a journalist almost his whole life, rst writing for the paper at St. Francis of Assisi Middle School in New Britain, Connecticut. He interned for Village Voice veteran Wayne Barrett during his senior year in 1998. After stints at City Limits, CBS News and e Village Voice, and receiving a master’s in economics from the New School, he returned to City Limits as an investigations editor in 2007.

Over the next 14 years, Murphy was ubiquitous in the newsroom,

By | Ethan Geringer-Sameth

working his way up to editor-in-chief in 2010 and assuming responsibility for the editorial and nancial direction of the company.

During a period in 2015, he was the site’s sole employee before building it back up to a sta of eight.

He launched a number of initiatives at the paper, including a reporting internship for high schoolers that had worked with more than 500 students and a Spanish language site called Una Ciudad sin Límites.

Journalism was changing

But the responsibilities of management had taken him away from the beat reporting that he loved, and the business of journalism was changing.

“I sensed that at some point either I was going to grow out of the job,” he said, “or it was going to grow out of me.”

He didn’t know what his next step would be, but he knew he wanted it to provide a public service. He eventually enrolled in the science prerequisites he needed to go to nursing school. He started his rst course on March 8, 2020, days before the pandemic forced the city into lockdown and spotlighted the essential nature of the ER nurse role.

His last day at City Limits was in

late May 2021. e shortage of nurses, exacerbated by the pandemic, increased the demand for people interested in switching careers, and Murphy took advantage of an accelerated 15-month program at Columbia. He nished his degree the next year, took the licensing exam and started in Mount Sinai’s ER in October 2022.

e change has been “exhilarating and challenging,” he said. “I think for anyone to change careers in their mid-40s is kind of terrifying but also great because you feel like a portion of your brain that has been dormant is active.”

His life has looked far di erent, working night shifts on his feet for 12 hours or more. He says the work calls for many of the same skills that he honed as a reporter: talking to strangers, getting their story and lling in the gaps by going through records.

“I’m witnessing the same story of New York City,” he said, “just from an entirely di erent vantage point.”

Murphy remains on the masthead at City Limits as a contributing editor and continues to write occasionally, but he hasn’t looked back. At least not until the mayor was indicted.

“ is is de nitely the rst time that I have felt that pang to get the notebook out again,” he said.

Age 48

Grew up New Britain, Connecticut

Resides Norwood, The Bronx

Education Bachelor’s in economics, Fordham University; public nancial policy diploma, the London School of Economics and Political Science; master’s in economics, The New School; master’s in nursing, Columbia University

Family life Murphy is married with two sons, ages 13 and 20.

Seafaring call Before he chose nursing, he considered a career as a tugboat captain. He’d grown up near the water in Connecticut and loved it, but he had no tugboat experience.

“It would have taken years and years of training, and I didn’t have that kind of commitment to the idea.”

Love of words “The two things I loved most about journalism were digging through documents to nd secrets and getting to be out in the city, meeting people and seeing neighborhoods,” Murphy told Crain’s

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Jarrett Murphy

Jarrett Murphy at Mount Sinai Hospital, where he works the night shift. BUCK ENNIS