Crain's New York Business

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BUCK ENNIS

CORONAVIRUS ALERT

New York braces for body blow City expected to lose 500,000 jobs as business activity grinds to a halt

BY AARON ELSTEIN

The speed and ferocity of job losses looming now is unpreceith many more con- dented.

In 2008, after Lehman Brothers firmed Covid-19 cases than anywhere else collapsed, 138,000 New Yorkers lost in the country, busi- their jobs, the IBO said. In 2001, after the stock-marness activity all but ket bubble popped, grinding to a halt 160,000 workers and all nonessenwere sidelined. tial workers orEven the 332,000 dered to stay NOBEL PRIZE winner jobs lost during the home, New York’s sees “massive” painful, long-lasteconomy is bracing recession from ing for a body blow unemployment ahead 1989 to 1992 pales of the magnitude Page 2 in comparison to no one has seen GOFUNDME pages what is likely ahead before. for the city and its “In a normal spring up to aid the residents. downturn, ecounemployed Page 4 “It’s a situation nomic activity contracts. But now QUEENS COUNCILMAN that changes your whole life,” Gov. economic activity calls on feds to save Andrew Cuomo is stopping,” said businesses Page 4 said during a news Ronnie Lowenconference last stein, director of CITY SETTING UP week. After whitthe city’s Indepenlearning centers for tling away at the dent Budget Ofchildren of essential numbers of people fice. “It’s a whole allowed to continue new world.” workers Page 4 to work in the city, Nearly 10% of HOME CARE firms the governor made the city’s workit official Friday: All ers—500,000 peoface staffing, supply nonessential workple—across all shortages Page 5 ers must stay home. sectors of the Calculating the economy will soon be unemployed, said James Parrott, eventual financial toll will be iman economist at the New School’s possible until officials get a grip on Center for New York City Affairs. He how pervasive the outbreak is and estimated 130,000 restaurant work- how long New Yorkers will have to avoid their workplace and close ers have already lost their jobs.

“A whole swath of people are be- contact with other people.

Last week Comptroller Scott ing asked to sacrifice their jobs in the interest of public health,” Parrott said.

See VIRUS on page 6

W This year’s rising business stars are bright lights in these dark times

BUCK ENNIS

PAGE 11

LAUREN JUPITER, managing partner of AccelFoods, applies a tech-sector investing approach to small food companies.

NEWSPAPER

VOL. 36, NO. 10

© 2020 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC.

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INSIDE

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CORONAVIRUS ALERT

Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz forecasts massive surge in unemployment

BY BRIAN PASCUS

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in the weeks ahead.

“Our unemployment system is among the worst in the advanced world in terms of coverage,” Stiglitz told Crain’s. He said that because our replacement rate—the percentage of an individual’s annual income replaced by unemployment benefits—is so low, most newly unemployed Americans will struggle to pay their essential bills.

BLOOMBERG

oble Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says the U.S. is headed for a period of massive unemployment. The federal government must step in to shore up the revenue shortfall that New York and other states will experience as measures to halt the coronavirus take a toll on the econBenefit gaps omy.

“It’s likely to be massive,” Stiglitz “They won’t be able to make said about the impending surge in their rent payments, utility payunemployment claims. “Whether it ments, car payments or student will wind up to be the 25% that loans, let alone have money for characterized the Great Depres- anything else,” he said, noting that sion or the 25% that the unemployment characterized the system doesn’t cover Greek crisis, that’s the self-employed or yet to be seen.” the part-time emStiglitz, a Columployed—including bia University proUber drivers and othfessor and former er “gig economy” chief economist at members—or the the World Bank, said 20% of American some analysts now children who live in anticipate a quarterpoverty. ly decrease in gross “We don’t have domestic product as anything for people high as 5%, a numlike that," he said. ber he called, “alThe New York Demost unprecedent- JOSEPH STIGLITZ partment of Labor ed. said it received a “It would be associated with a 950% increase in phone calls about very large increase in unemploy- unemployment benefits last week, ment,” he added. compared with the week before.

With restaurants and bars shuttered and all nonessential city em- System failure ployers ordered to work from One couple in New York City alhome, no state in America might ready experienced the shortcomfeel the economic effects of the cri- ings of the state’s unemployment sis quite like New York. Many of the system. Thea Calloway, 64, recently major hotels in Manhattan are in was laid off following the move to the process of closing, and they ex- shutter Broadway productions. pect to see thousands of job losses Thea is a theater manager at the

Ambassador on West 49th Street. Her husband is a REBOOT: The state’s stagehand who most reunemployment cently worked at the CBS website crashed last News broadcast center. He week, leading some also was laid off. to visit its labor When Calloway went onoffices, like this one line to apply for benefits, in Harlem. she experienced a system failure.

“It kept crashing,” she said. “I did it five or six times. You go on to the next page and keep rebooting it, and then go back to the beginning. I was lucky to complete it.”

Unsure if the website even received her claim, Calloway and her husband went to the state labor office on West 125th Street in Harlem, only to learn from officials there that the office would soon be closing, and that everyone would need apply online.

“The unemployment page is crashing and they’re clos- rise in unemployment claims.

Going forward, Stiglitz said, the ing the office,” she said in disbelief.

“There will be massive cuts in ba- federal government will need to sic public services,” Stiglitz said. engage in a large-scale federal rev“Cities and states will see their rev- enue-sharing program across all 50 enues plummet. We have bal- states in order to shore up state anced-budget frameworks, and budgets.

While states such as New York they can’t print money like the are trying to expand hospital caFed.” The state Senate passed legisla- pacity and postponing evictions tion last Wednesday to ensure New and debt collection, he said, in the Yorkers have access to paid sick end they have limited fiscal capacileave in the event they need to ty. The situation might necessitate leave their jobs and quarantine the creation of new taxes on the themselves due to exposure to the wealthy and the real estate market, coronavirus. The Senate measure he said.

“They need to have an emergenfollows its passage of $40 million in aid, a number that might not be cy city tax—like a pied-á-terre tax nearly enough for the imminent or a billionaire's tax—but at mild

ECONOMY

More Covid-19 tests key to business confidence: survey

BY BRIAN PASCUS MORE CORONAVIRUS TESTING is the key to restoring business confidence, according to a Partnership for New York survey released last Thursday.

City business leaders representing more than 130 companies took the survey between March 13 and 18. The results offer a snapshot of the concerns among the business community to economic conditions caused by the virus. The lead-

ers surveyed said the rate of available virus testing is the single most important action that can be taken to restore private-sector confidence.

Insufficient availability of health care resources during the crisis was the biggest fear. Concerns about a citywide lockdown that would ban interstate travel and shut down transit also were prominent concerns.

“The business community is working with government to estab-

lish the public-private partnerships that can and must see us through this crisis,” said Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the partnership.

Other key findings in the survey were that 95% of the businesses surveyed have implemented workfrom-home policies and that 97% of those surveyed expressed confidence in the state government to manage the crisis, compared with 79% in the city government and 61% in the federal government. ■

BUCK ENNIS

Not ruling out that it could reach Great Depression level of 25%

rates that will not deter people from living in the city and state, yet can raise large amounts of money,” Stiglitz said.

Although the Nobel Prize winner said the United States has enough wealth and capacity to deal with the economic problems presented by the virus crisis, he said he hopes this period of high unemployment helps us realize our economic interdependence and the need for a more equal and balanced society.

“We should discover the glaring inequities in our society, the precariousness of so many people,” he said, “and the risk exposed to all of us when large numbers are so precarious.” ■

NOMINATIONS

NOMINATIONS CLOSE FRIDAY, MARCH 27 Crain’s is searching for Rising Stars in Real Estate, young professionals making an impact in an essential New York City industry.

CrainsNewYork.com/risingstarsrealestate2020

CORRECTIONS ■ SL Green paid $245 million for a 45% stake in 245 Park Ave. The amount was misstated in “Is billion-dollar Black Rock sale a one-off or part of a trend?” published March 16.

■ An updated Gotham Gigs profile of Valerie Smaldone appears on CrainsNewYork.com.

Vol. 36, No. 10, March 23, 2020—Crain’s New York Business (ISSN 8756-789X) is published weekly, except for bimonthly in January, July and August and the last issue in December, by Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017.

Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to: Crain’s New York Business, Circulation Department, PO Box 433279, Palm Coast, FL 32143-9681. For subscriber service: call 877-824-9379; fax 313-446-6777. $3.00 a copy; $129.00 per year. (GST No. 13676-0444-RT) ©Entire contents copyright 2020 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved.

2 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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ADVERTISING

MACGUFFIN FILMS’ director Nick Fuglestad and producer Sam Wool

SKIPPING THE COMMERCIALS BUCK ENNIS

Low tax credits and high filming costs keep advertising production away

BY RYAN DEFFENBAUGH

A

s the city’s film and TV industry tries to keep up with the demand for digital-streaming content, one sector of the production market is being left behind: the crews who shoot the ads that for so many years populated shows.

“Commercials have been struggling in New York for some time and may actually be at an all-time low,” said Matt Miller, president and CEO of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers.

Many industry experts blame the price of producing commercials here. The costs only recently were offset by a tax subsidy approaching that of movies and TV shows. Weather and competition for soundstages and street locations also have hurt the market.

The situation has become so dire that industry officials have said that proposed City Council legislation—with stricter permit rules—could wipe out New York’s share of the $70 billion commercial-filming industry.

“This used to be our bread-and-butter work here,” said John Ford, president of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 52. “Now it’s incidental.”

In the industry’s nascent days, when Mad Men’s fictional ad executive Don Draper would have roamed Madison Avenue, commercials were shot almost exclusively in New York. But the business slowly migrated to Hollywood in the latter half See FILM on page 10

HOTELS

With occupancy plummeting, hotels start to close Hilton temporarily shuttering its nearly 2,000-room Midtown location

T

he city’s hotel industry is in free fall, as occupancy and room rates have plunged and a growing number of chains have shuttered locations due to the dramatic drop-off in business as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

Widely watched data from hotel market–tracking firm STR released last

Wednesday showed that occupancy fell to 49% for the week ended March 14, a decline of 44% from the same week a year ago. The average room rate for the week was about $181, according to STR data, a 19% drop from the rates during the same week a year ago.

Although March is generally considered part of a slow season in the hotel industry, the average occupancy rate

for the month in New York City during the past 30 years has been 79%, STR reported.

Because of a lag, the figures don’t account in full for the continued alarming decline of the hotel industry's metrics and financial health. Employees at several major hotels said their occupancy See HOSPITALITY on page 9

AILING BUSINESS The city’s hotels have been sidelined by the coronavirus.

BUCK ENNIS

BY DANIEL GEIGER

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CORONAVIRUS ALERT

Restaurants, movie theaters turn to GoFundMe to ease burden as employees stay home

A

s state labor officials work through a flood of unemployment claims and the federal government considers cutting each American a check, some city businesses and workers are launching coronavirus relief efforts of their own.

That includes popular beer bar The Double Windsor in Brooklyn, which has a staff of about 20 when business is running as usual. With coronavirus restrictions stripping down operations to takeout and delivery only, the bar’s staff has been whittled to four. The rest of the workers were let go.

“We had been hoping a few weeks ago we might be looking at a two-week shutdown and we could

tell them there were no more shifts.”

Horowitz frets over how long the bar can survive on food sales only.

He’s also worried about how his former employees will make ends meet. Last week he launched a GoFundMe page for them, and in less than 24 hours it exceeded its $10,000 goal.

“We’ve had a lot of regular customers [and] friends but also some names I don’t know,” Horowitz said of the GoFundMe donors. “I’m blown away by the whole thing.”

Virtual tip jars The Double Windsor is not alone in turning to online giving to ease the pain for the nearly 200,000 workers in New York’s nightlife industry, a significant number of whom will be out of work for as long as the city practices social distancing.

GoFundMe’s homepage has a link to the long list of funding pages started in response to Covid-19. Several have raised thousand of euros to help Italian hospitals.

In this country, and in New York specifically, many of the efforts are designed to help hourly workers get by during the pandemic as the government works through economic-relief proposals.

At Standings in the East Village, staff typically would be gearing up

“I CANNOT SIT IDLY BY AND NOT ACT ON BEHALF OF OUR COLLECTIVE STAFFS” bite the bullet and pay everyone’s salary,” said Eric Horowitz, a partner in the restaurant. “It very quickly became much bigger than that, and it became something we couldn’t even consider. We had to

THE DOUBLE WINDSOR exceeded its $10,000 fundraising goal in less than 24 hours.

ROSIE COHE

BY RYAN DEFFENBAUGH

for March Madness crowds. The NCAA called off the tournament, though, and employees there have launched a virtual tip jar, as described on a GoFundMe page that raised $7,800 in its first five days.

The Cinema Worker Solidarity Fund, launched last week, has raised $52,500 toward its $62,000 goal. Every $3,000 donated can support a week’s salary for five hourly cinema employees, according to the page.

In one of the more ambitious efforts, chef and restaurateur

Philippe Massoud launched the Restaurant Employees Relief Effort, which has raised $6,295 toward its $400,000 goal. The money, he wrote, will fund a distribution network to provide food, diapers and other necessities to out-ofwork restaurant employees.

“I cannot sit idly by and not act on behalf of our collective staffs,” wrote Massoud, who owns Ilili in Midtown.

More comprehensive help will have to come from the government. New York is working through

a massive influx of unemployment claims that crashed its website last week. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin warned that without a trillion-dollar aid package, unemployment could reach 20% during the pandemic.

A GoFundMe effort is only a Band-Aid, as Horowitz described it.

“Will it save these people? No,” he said. “It will help them in the short run. But if this becomes months and months and months, well, everyone is in trouble.” ■

City looks to bridge child care Queens pol: Save small businesses gap for essential workers

BY BRIAN PASCUS

T

he de Blasio administration and the city Department of Education plan to educate children of city workers in regional learning centers to help keep essential personnel fighting on the front lines of the Covid-19 outbreak.

The sudden mass-education plan was formulated by the de Blasio administration following the citywide shutdown of the school system. The Department of Education is set to open more than 100 regional enrichment centers across the five boroughs March 23. The first children to be accommodated at the centers will be those of first responders, health care workers and transit employees.

The centers will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, the city said, and they will be run by a combination of Education Department staff and those of community-based organizations. Children will be divided into rooms of no more than

12 students in order to encourage social distancing, with some rooms devoted to early-childhood care. Each student will get three meals per day, the city said.

The plan comes on the heels of the DOE’s decision to switch to remote learning for all K-12 students.

“I don’t think anyone can say this is the right decision or wrong decision,” said Okhee Lee, an NYU childhood education professor.

“It’s the best decision given the information limitations and contradictions we can make.”

Lee said she considers the entire enterprise more of an engineering challenge in that education and city officials are trying to make a novel situation work within the constraints of moving pieces, namely thousands of children and teachers.

Some essential government departments are experiencing shortages of able bodies. The Department of Citywide Administrative Services told Crain’s there has been a decrease in the number of city employees coming to the of-

fice. Teleworking accounts for much of the absence, the department said.

The safety and support of the enrichment centers will depend in part on how the rollout is implemented in the coming weeks. The broad use of virtual learning is an unprecedented experiment.

“There has never been a switch to digital learning on such a large scale,” said Sarah Cohodes, associate professor of economics and education at Columbia University.

“The implications for educational inequality are large.”

“Any situation of this magnitude has the danger of widening the [income] gap,” Lee said, adding that she worries about students who lack resources such as a reliable internet connection.

Most troubling is the chance that the centers could become infected with the virus.

The regional center strategy might fail “if there is a need for further social distancing or if staff or students fall ill with Covid-19 and [centers] are frequently closed,” Cohodes said. ■

BY RYAN DEFFENBAUGH FORGET THE CRUISE industry—save small businesses.

That’s the urgent message sent in a letter to federal officials by City Councilman Costa Constantinides of Queens. The letter was in response to federal negotiations for a trillion-dollar coronavirus stimulus package. With insurance unlikely to be able to cover the massive damages Covid-19 brings to small businesses, the councilman said, more emphasis needs to be put on getting federal dollars to those operations.

“The fossil-fuel industry, quite frankly, does not need a bailout, and neither do luxury cruise lines that evade basic worker protections by off-shoring their operations,” Constantinides wrote.

A GOP-led plan would send checks of up $1,200 to taxpayers and set aside $300 billion for small-business loans. The Trump administration previously discussed sending money to the cruise industry.

Most small businesses in Constantinides' district would prefer to lean on their business-interruption

insurance—coverage for shutdowns following a disaster—to get them through the coronavirus crisis, he said. But state regulators warned earlier this month—before the state and city ordered most businesses closed—that economic disruptions could put insurers in financial peril.

On March 10 the state Department of Financial Services gave the insurers it regulates 30 days to file a detailed assessment of their coronavirus risks.

Two options That leaves the federal government with two options, the councilman told Crain’s: "They can go through funding business-interruption insurance or they can send real dollars to businesses.”

The City Council is working through its own aid package. Constantinides said he supports city-led relief efforts, including halting collections of sales tax as well as water and sewer taxes.

“But at the end of the day,” he said, “the entity with the best ability to act here is the federal government. We need them to move.” ■

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CORONAVIRUS ALERT

BY JONATHAN LAMANTIA

ISTOCK

R Home care firms face staff, supply shortages

BY JENNIFER HENDERSON

those to allow agencies to operate outside of their own geographic argencies that provide post- eas, will be important, Noyes said.

RiseBoro Community Partneracute and long-term care to hundreds of thousands ship’s home care division—which of patients in their homes provides services to more than 700 are facing unique challenges during clients in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan—is continuing as northe Covid-19 outbreak.

Home care is inherently inti- mal. But it is running low on permate—the polar opposite of social sonal protection equipment.

Home health aides have condistancing. The patients are often older adults with multiple chronic cerns about their patients’ health as conditions, who are most vulnera- well as their own, said Glenmore ble to the new coronavirus. Addi- Matthews, vice president of home tionally, providers are reporting care at RiseBoro. Some are facing shortages in supplies and aides the added challenge of not having available to work as well as an babysitting during school closures.

Last week RiseBoro had to find abundance of priority patients in replacement aides for some of its need of uninterrupted care.

The Home Care Association of clients due to lack of child care, Matthews said. In recent New York State last weeks it's been educating week received an unstaff electronically on safeprecedented number of ty measures to prevent the responses to a survey on spread of Covid-19 while coronavirus concerns.

OF HOME CARE discontinuing in-person Out of more than 300 refirms say aide training. RiseBoro also is spondents, 67% said shortages are asking home care workers they did not have hindering their to stagger their visit times enough personal procrisis response, when possible to avoid tective equipment for a survey found high-traffic periods on their staff. About 45% crowded public transporsaid aide shortages are a tation. major barrier in their re“My concern is, if the condition sponse to the crisis, and about 45% said they have encountered pa- worsens, then it’s going to reach a tients and family members refusing point where many home care workers will not be able to go to work,” caregivers entrance to the home.

Responding agencies reported Matthews said.

To help alleviate some of that they have more than 14,000 patients who require life-sustaining concern, RiseBoro has been identiequipment or medication or highly fying high-need patients without skilled wound care, or who are un- family members or informal carestable and don’t have informal sup- givers. About 30% of its caseload port. In disasters and emergencies, meets that criterion. Accordingly, the state requires that every effort it’s also been determining which workers may be able to stay with be made to see such patients.

“One thing that home care agen- priority patients for extended pericies are doing to be able to respond ods of time, he said.

Workforce shortages stand to in the event of staff shortages is to look at other priority levels and see have an impact on revenues, Matto what extent those cases can be thews said. “There is a lot of uncermanaged by working with family tainty,” Matthews said, “which is members, education over the creating panic and fear in workers phone, telehealth and remote as well as clients.”

In the meantime, home care promonitoring systems," said Roger Noyes, director of communications viders will be watching closely for at the Home Care Association of additional regulatory waivers and the dispersal of emergency funds New York State.

Relaxed regulations, such as from federal legislation. ■

A

ivington House, a former HIV/AIDS nursing home in Manhattan that was the focal point of a controversial real estate deal, is available to serve as a temporary medical facility to treat Covid-19, according to an official at Mount Sinai Health System.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio are urgently searching for facilities that could be retrofitted to treat patients if the city’s hospitals are overrun with patients.

Last week the governor estimated that the state might need up to 110,000 hospital beds, which is about double the number that currently exist.

leasing the property at 45 Rivington St. and recently began work to convert it into a behavioral health center offering mental health and substance-use treatment.

“Mount Sinai is offering—and will continue to offer—any and all assistance possible to the city and state during this crisis, including repurposing and creatively using existing space and creating new space in anticipation of the increase in Covid-19 patients,” a Mount Sinai spokeswoman said.

“However, ultimately, it’s the city’s and state’s decision on what will be used and for which purpose. In the meantime, all of our hospitals and ambulatory centers are open and fully engaged in helping our communities during the Covid-19 crisis.”

“MOUNT SINAI IS OFFERING ANY AND ALL ASSISTANCE TO THE CITY AND STATE” “We are making sure that the city and state know about this facility and do with it whatever is best for us to all get through this,” Dr. Jeremy Boal, president of Mount Sinai Beth Israel and the system’s downtown clinical operations, told Lower East Side community activist K Webster, in response to questions about the facility.

Mount Sinai Health System is

Controversial history Rivington House, located on the Lower East Side, opened in the early 1990s to respond to a wave of patients with HIV/AIDS. In 2015 a for-profit operator, the Allure Group, purchased the facility for $28 million. A year later it sold the

PROPERTYSHARK

Rivington House could be treatment site for Covid-19

facility to luxury-housing developers for $116 million, angering community residents and local elected officials. It was only able to do so because City Hall accepted $16 million to lift a deed restriction that required the facility to be used as a nonprofit residential health care facility.

The de Blasio administration said at the time it was lied to by Allure but admitted that officials as high-ranking as then-First Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris either were aware or should have been that the deed restriction would lead to the property becoming available for other uses. Allure Group agreed to a nearly $1.3 million settlement with the state attorney general in 2017 and must create health care facilities on the Lower East Side and in central Brooklyn. ■

45%

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FROM PAGE 1

Stringer predicted city tax revenues would fall by $3.2 billion by October as he urged the de Blasio administration to cut the city’s $95 billion budget.

“We need to save now, before it’s too late, if we’re going to weather the downturn ahead,” Stringer said.

Kathryn Wylde, chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, said she took some comfort in the fact that large companies with employees in China and South Korea are applying lessons learned there to what is happening in New York now.

“But,” Wylde said, “small and midsize companies have no luxury of experience or the resources to deal with this.”

Hanging on For many small businesses, the decision of whether to stay open

dining in restaurants. Urban’s eatery opened only last month, and a lot of people in the neighborhood don’t know about it yet, but he said he and his two partners are trying to hang on by offering takeout.

They’ve tweaked recipes for fried-chicken sandwiches and grilled carrots with harissa.

“We have no outside investors and minimal overhead, but it’s unclear how long we can go on,” Urban said.

Restaurants relying only on takeout are seeing revenue fall by as much as 90%, said Ira Robbins, CEO of Valley Bank. Occupancy rates at Robbins’ hotel clients went from 85% two weeks ago to near zero.

“It’s important to work with borrowers to make sure their business succeeds,” he said. “That is much better than going to foreclosure.”

Robbins added that the federal government’s moves to slash interest rates and keep the financial system functioning during the financial crisis in 2008 helped revive the economy and minimized jobs losses in New York. But he said such moves are of no help to his borrowers now. A comprehensive rescue package is urgent, he said.

“If a person doesn’t have a job, it doesn’t matter how much I can lend,” Robbins said.

Grim as things might look,

“IF A PERSON DOESN’T HAVE A JOB, IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW MUCH I CAN LEND” has been taken out of their hands.

On Friday all barber shops and nail salons were ordered to close.

Chad Urban last week laid off 18 employees at Chez Nick on the Upper East Side after the city banned

Moody’s economist Barbara Denham said the city is better positioned to withstand a severe economic shock than in previous recessions.

The percentage of New York’s workforce in recession-resistant THE CORONAVIRUS sectors, such as health has affected almost care and higher eduall aspects of life in cation, has grown New York City. considerably in the past decade. The fast-growing tech sector remains strong, with Amazon agreeing to buy the Lord & Taylor building from WeWork for $978 million and Facebook leasing a huge amount of space in Hudson “Business has been strong so far Yards. All that could help soften the blow from the severe job losses ex- this year, but I’m not naive,” he pected in hospitality, travel, enter- said. “If revenue is flat going forward, that would be good.” tainment and finance.

“We have a lot to protect us,” DenSupermarkets struggling ham said, “more than most cities.”

At TransPerfect, the nation’s In the meantime, New Yorkers largest translation-services firm, are thinking about things most nevdemand from business custom- er considered, such as if they can ers remains strong. CEO Phil get groceries. Some supermarkets Shawe said his 25,000 translators appear to be struggling to restock have been translating lots of office their shelves after people sweep memos urging employees to work through in waves of panic buying. from home and teaching them Mike Durant, president of the ways to protect themselves from Food Industry Alliance of New the new coronavirus. He said he’s York, said supply chains reoffering his firm’s services for free main strong, though he underto government agencies. stands that shoppers might not be-

BUCK ENNIS

VIRUS

lieve that.

Vinny Pacifico, owner of one of the city’s largest food distributors, said he’s worried about shortages of beef and other kinds of protein developing in the coming weeks.

He said meat intended for restaurants is going to supermarkets instead. But after that inventory is sold out, Pacifico fears, mounting labor shortages could disrupt supply. He said he thinks unemployed Uber drivers should be enlisted to deliver food.

“Honestly, I’m worried about people going hungry,” Pacifico said.

“No box of beef ever walked its way onto a truck. ■”

LAST CHANCE TO NOMINATE! Crainʼs is seeking Rising Stars in Real Estate, a celebratory program honoring young professionals making an impact in real estate early in their careers. Candidates must have knowledge, skills, integrity and a high degree of ethics and have already contributed to their profession and the community.

Criterias include: • Program is open to professionals working in real estate and those in other industries with a real estate focus • Candidate has no more than 15 years of industry experience • Candidate must work within the five boroughs of New York City or the counties of Nassau, Bergen, Westchester and Rockland to qualify • Nomination must include reference from senior leadership at firm Crainʼs will publish the list of honorees online and in print in our editorial coverage on May 11, 2020.

Nominate today at: www.crainsnewyork.com/risingstarsrealestate2020 Deadline: March 27 | Questions? risingstars@crainsnewyork.com

6 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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ON NEW YORK

New York’s been down before

Severity of the economic impact of Covid-19 depends on tech and Wall Street

F

By the late 1980s it was Wall our times since World War II the city has faced an eco- Street that dominated the city’s nomic downturn, each one economy. The 1987 stock market less severe than the last. crash (22% decline in the Dow in Now, for the first time, New York’s one day) punctured another long expansion. Interestingly, downturn will begin with almost nothing changed the hospitality industry, in the months after Black now more important Monday, as employment than ever before, and will remained steady. While ripple throughout the Crain’s stories tracked rest of the economy in how the markets and the completely unpredictprivate sector were conable ways. tracting, business leaders The recession of the demurred. One real es1970s hit right after Maytate mogul called the or John Lindsay won GREG DAVID publisher to complain re-election. The city’s Crain’s was trying to "talk long contraction in manufacturing suddenly accelerated, the city into a recession."

By the end of 1989, just after Daand more than 400,000 industrial jobs disappeared in the eight-year vid Dinkins became the city’s first slide. White residents were fleeing African-American mayor, the numthe city, with a loss of 800,000 people in the 1970s. The result was a major decline in retail and wholesale jobs. Government jobs disappeared, as the city faced a fiscal crisis. (The role the economy played in that crisis has gotten surprisingly short shrift.) It ended just after Ed Koch was elected mayor and the city began a long, slow rebound, al- bers began a sharp plunge. It was though it never reached its 1969 later obvious that an expansion of city government and city-funded peak in jobs.

social services had at first covered up the problems in the private sector. A soaring crime rate, with murders skyrocketing to 2,200 in the early 1990s, combined to shake most people’s confidence. A New York Times poll found that more than half of all New Yorkers hoped to leave the city in the coming years.

Bounce back Wall Street eventually found its footing, and after a few years of torturous growth, good times returned. Those ended early in 2001, when the first tech bubble burst, wiping out the city’s emerging internet sector and erasing the profits the stock market was making from initial public offerings. The 9/11 terrorist attacks made matters worse, but they were not the cause.

Wall Street righted its footing two years later, and the economic dislocation of 9/11 was confined to a small area of the city downtown.

In a telling historical irony, the 2007–2008 financial crisis caused primarily by Wall Street led to the nation’s worst eco-

“THE RECESSION WILL RIPPLE THROUGH THE ECONOMY IN UNPREDICTABLE WAYS”

DOWNTURN LENGTH JOBS LOST % 20% 15%

16% 620,000 10% 349,300

10%

6% 227,500

5%

4% 138,000

0 1969-1977 96 months

1990-1992 34 months

2001-2003 31 months

2008-2009 14 months

SOURCE: New York State Labor Department

nomic downturn since the Great Depression, but it was the shortest and mildest recession the city has faced. The bailout of banks saved tens of thousands of jobs. The Fed’s zero-interest policy was a gift to Wall Street. Just as important, tourism boomed as both Americans and those from foreign countries found the city irresistible.

So much is different this time.

The city’s hospitality sector employs 445,000 people—about 10%

of the workforce. It is being hit first and hard. Wall Street is still the city’s most important industry, if less so than any time since the mid1980s. Tech is more important than ever before.

How bad will it be? The best guess is that depends on whether Wall Street and tech join hospitality in a downward plunge. ■ Greg David writes a regular column for CrainsNewYork.com.

IN THE MARKETS

Government dusting off 2008 financial crisis playbook

T

he Federal Reserve stress- Bush administration sent $300 to tests banks every year to every lower- and middle-income see how they could handle household and $300 to every dea severe economic shock. pendent in February 2008.

Google searches for the word The worst-case scenario envisioned in the most recent test includes a “unemployment” rose by 33% yes10% unemployment rate. Last terday and are running 20 times week, Treasury Secretary Steven higher than last week, according to DataTrek Research.

Mnuchin warned that Let’s take a breath. It’s unless Congress takes not exactly like 2008. For steps to stem the damstarters, before Covid-19 age caused by Covid-19, became the only thing unemployment could on everyone’s mind, the soar to as high as 20%.

U.S. economy was a lot And that explains why healthier than it was 12 we’re seeing the governyears ago. And banks are ment intervene in marbetter positioned to kets in ways that don’t a severe ecojust harken back to the AARON ELSTEIN withstand nomic crisis than when dark days of 2008, they Bear Stearns and Lehabsolutely mimic them.

The Fed announced last week man Bros. walked the earth, right?

“Banks are certainly better capithat it would pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the market for talized than before the financial crishort-term IOUs known as com- sis,” said Mayra Rodriguez Valmercial paper. The Trump adminis- ladares, a former banker who trains tration started out pushing a $850 financial regulators. “But that’s not stimulus package, which happens saying much. They were terribly to be almost the exact amount ap- undercapitalized before the crisis.”

It’s true that households are less proved by Congress in 2009 for the American Recovery and Reinvest- overextended than heading into 2008. Consumer debt is equal to ment Act. Entire industries are begging for about 75% of gross domestic product, according to data from the bailouts.

Other songs from the Leh- Bank for International Settlements, man-era hymnbook are getting re- down from nearly 100% before the played. Mnuchin has proposed crisis.

But nonfinancial corporate debt sending $1,000 checks to every American, much as the George W. has risen to a record 46% of GDP,

according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Now that the economy has come to a screeching halt, companies are poised to default like never before. Small businesses and their employees will suffer the most, but even the debt of mighty Exxon Mobil was downgraded by S&P Global this week.

Let us pray More downgrades will force banks to set aside more capital to cushion against credit losses. Banks can raise capital by issuing debt or new equity—which is a tricky business in a panicked marketplace. Or they can retain earnings—which means hoarding cash exactly when their customers need it most.

“I’m afraid what we’re facing is worse than the financial crisis,” Valladares said, “because the problems now go far beyond housing.”

I spoke to a wholesaler this morning who told me he drew about 40% of his bank line of credit this week because customers suddenly are unable pay him. Although he said he trusts they’ll ultimately be good for it because of long-term relationships, he can’t afford to wait.

“I drew down the money as a hedge,” the executive said. “Liquidity is drying up.”

That’s just one person’s story, but it’s one you hear repeated often these days. And so we reopen the Lehman hymnbook. ■

Our top priority is your bottom line.

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MARCH 23, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 7

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president K.C. Crain senior executive vice president Chris Crain group publisher Mary Kramer

EDITORIAL

publisher/executive editor

New Yorkers will rise to the challenge while.

Our elected officials have had the unenviable task of deciding how far to restrict public activity, as they weigh the benefits of social distancing against our desire to maintain our way of life and economic health.

When you close scores of pubs and restaurants overnight, you guarantee businesses will falter and people will lose their jobs.

City Comptroller Scott Stringer last week estimated the city will lose $3.2 billion in tax revenue in the next six months.

But we are not defeated. New Yorkers are fighters, first and foremost. The 2008 financial crisis shook Wall Street to its core. And 9/11 was a gut punch that none of us will forget. But we bounced back, and we will again.

One can argue our leaders were slow to respond in meaningful ways to the latest crisis.

But they have taken necessary steps of late, and made some hard choices.

Now it’s time to do our part. First, we can quit bellyaching. Yes, it’s all so inconvenient. But like our parents told us when we were young: It’s for our own good.

All of us should heed health

NEW YORKERS WILL SURVIVE THE WAY WE ALWAYS HAVE: WITH GRIT AND DETERMINATION Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that all but non-essential personnel will be banned from coming to work in the city.

We’re in uncharted territory and likely to remain there for a

EDITORIAL editor Robert Hordt assistant managing editors

Christine Haughney (special projects), Janon Fisher, Gabriella Iannetta (digital) senior editor Telisha Bryan associate editor Lizeth Beltran (digital) art director Carolyn McClain photographer Buck Ennis data editor Gerald Schifman senior reporters Aaron Elstein, Daniel Geiger,

Jonathan LaMantia reporters Ryan Deffenbaugh, Gwen Everett,

Jennifer Henderson, Brian Pascus columnist Greg David contributors Tom Acitelli, Ronald DeCicco,

Cara Eisenpress, Cheryl S. Grant, Steve Krupinski, Danielle McManus Sladek, Mark Yawdoszyn to contact the newsroom:

www.crainsnewyork.com/staff 212.210.0100 685 Third Ave., New York, NY 10017-4024 BUCK ENNIS

W

elcome to the new normal.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic that is sweeping the nation and most of the world, life in New York has taken a sudden turn for the worse in ways none of us could have imagined a few weeks ago.

Not only do we have to worry about getting sick and spreading the virus to others, we’ve been forced to recalibrate our lives. The list of cancellations and closings in the city is long and getting longer. The St. Patrick’s Day Parade was canceled for the first time in more than 250 years.

Broadway has gone dark, and most malls, museums, movie theaters, restaurants and bars were ordered closed. Pro basketball, hockey and baseball seasons are suspended, and on Friday

Frederick P. Gabriel Jr.

experts’ advice. Stay inside as much as possible and avoid social interaction, especially when it involves more than two or three people. Businesses can get on board by making sure their employees are properly equipped to work from home.

If we can slow the virus down, our health care system will be in a better position to cope, and we’ll have a better chance of taking care of those who get seriously ill.

It’s not advisable to visit family and friends who are elderly these

days, but call them regularly and offer to pick up food and run other errands for them. They are most at risk of succumbing to the virus. But we are all at risk.

If you are able, donate to your local food bank. People who are out of work need assistance.

In the end, New Yorkers will survive the way we always have: with grit and determination. Yes, this crisis is different from anything else we’ve encountered.

But together, we can rise to the challenge and overcome it. ■

ADVERTISING

www.crainsnewyork.com/advertise senior account managers Rob Pierce,

Stuart Smilowitz, Tori Weil account executive Devin Cavallo integrated marketing manager Jonathan Yan,

212.210.0290, jyan@crainsnewyork.com associate art director/marketing

Charles Fontanilla, 212.210.0145, cfontanilla@crainsnewyork.com people on the move manager Debora Stein,

dstein@crain.com CUSTOM CONTENT director of custom content

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www.crainsnewyork.com/events manager of conferences & events

Politics of Covid-19

Ana Jimenez, ajimenez@crainsnewyork REPRINTS director, reprints & licensing Lauren Melesio,

212.210.0707, lmelesio@crain.com

BY BRADLEY TUSK

T

his is a moment voters will remember.

Pass the budget on time?

No one cares. Water flows through the pipes cleanly and the traffic lights turn from red to green?

There’s no credit for that—only blame when those things don’t work right.

New Yorkers largely ignore politics most of the time. Who can blame them? But there are instances when performance is noticed: times of crisis.

Times like the one we’re in right now. Our coronavirus woes might last only another few weeks. Or they might continue for two years.

Nobody knows yet. But we do know that how top elected officials in New York perform during this period will weigh heavily on their political futures. Here’s who should be paying especially close attention.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo Human tragedy aside, this is an exciting time for the governor. Crisis is when he’s at his best. If Biden wins, Cuomo could wind up with a

cabinet post. Although running FEMA might not seem prestigious enough for him, he’d be excellent at the job. Absent a major new law, like same-sex marriage or bail reform, few voters care what happens in Albany—except when the governor’s performance can keep them safe. Cuomo doesn’t need to pay attention. This is what he lives for.

Mayor Bill de Blasio The mayor has been active around the coronavirus. He’s even taken the subway. The question for him is staying in power. If the crisis ends soon, odds are he can keep up the pace and improve his standing with voters, many of whom—according to widespread polling— have abandoned him. If de Blasio wants to leave the mayoralty with the possibility of running successfully for something else or even just a better chance at getting a good job, staying on top of this crisis is a major opportunity. If he starts to grow tired of paying attention and working hard, this could finish him off for good.

Attorney General Tish James If you believe that most attorney

general’s offices are public-relations firms with subpoena power, then James is well positioned to star in this movie. Every time a business tries to gouge consumers for hand sanitizer, surgical masks or toilet paper, James can launch an investigation. Consumers really need a watchdog right now, and the press would love nothing more than to follow every twist and turn.

The MTA New York can’t survive without a functioning mass transit system.

There might not be a way to make our subways, trains and buses completely safe from contamination, but how safe they are is wholly a question of management competence. Good leaders figure it out.

Bad leaders make excuses. We’ll see what emerges from the MTA. New York Delegation Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and the entire New York congressional delegation need to look like they’re doing something, but other than appropriating emergency funding or attacking Trump’s mishandling of the crisis, it’s not clear what they

can do. The more creative pols— Schumer especially—will figure it out.

President Donald Trump He might now be a Floridian in name, but for better and worse, he’s still a New Yorker. No incumbent president presiding over a good economy and not enmeshed in a ground war has ever lost re-election. That’s why many experts favored Trump to win again in November. How Trump handles the crisis will have a bigger impact on his prospects than anything else this year.

There’s obviously a lot more at stake in this crisis than political futures. But dozens of politicians know that their standing depends on how they handle the coming weeks and months. Some will succeed. Others will fail. But who does which could determine the balance of power in the next few years.

Personally, I’m looking forward to the distraction. ■ Bradley Tusk is a political strategist and former Bloomberg campaign manager.

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Entire contents ©copyright 2020 Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. ©CityBusiness is a registered trademark of MCP Inc., used under license agreement.

CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. chairman Keith E. Crain vice chairman Mary Kay Crain president K.C. Crain senior executive vice president Chris Crain secretary Lexie Crain Armstrong editor-in-chief emeritus Rance Crain chief financial officer Robert Recchia founder G.D. Crain Jr. [1885-1973] chairman Mrs. G.D. Crain Jr. [1911-1996]

8 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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FROM PAGE 3

numbers had fallen into the single digits in recent days. They said their hotels either were shuttering or contemplating a shutdown to wait out the crisis.

“We’re bleeding as far as occupancy goes—all hotels are right now,” an employee at the glitzy Gramercy Park Hotel told Crain’s.

“We’re in the single digits in terms of occupancy. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The person said the grand hotel, which is owned by large landlord RFR Realty, was considering closing temporarily.

“We’re taking it day by day,” the person said.

‘Ghost town’ An employee at a prominent Meatpacking District hotel, the Standard High Line, said it likely will be closing until April 30 to try to wait out the crisis.

An employee at Midtown’s 426room, tourist-focused Warwick Hotel said it had stopped taking reservations until May 11.

“It’s a nightmare,” the person said. “It’s a ghost town.”

The employees did not want to be identified because their managers had not authorized them to speak to the news media.

The city’s largest hotel by room count, the nearly 2,000-room Hilton on Sixth Avenue, announced it

was closing last Friday to wait out the crisis.

“As a result of the novel coronavirus, the hospitality industry is experiencing an impact to business that will require New York Hilton Midtown to temporarily suspend hotel operations as of March 20,” a Hilton spokeswoman said. “This is a temporary measure that is reflective of the current business environment.”

The spokeswoman suggested that Hilton might shutter other locations it operates in the city.

The Midtown Hilton has 1,386 employees. The hotel has not made any decisions about layoffs. The workers are part of the city’s hotel union, the Hotel Trades Council.

“Many of the major hotels are in the process of closing their doors, and we expect to see thousands of hotel workers' jobs lost, either through furloughs or layoffs, over the coming weeks,” an HTC source told Crain’s.

Although there was still hope that the virus could be controlled and the economy repaired in the coming months, hotel experts were already predicting that 2020 could be the worst year ever for the city’s hotel industry.

“If the annualized occupancy number for the hotel market sinks to 70% or below, it would be the worst metrics we’ve ever seen,” said Sean Hennessey, an assistant professor at New York University and an expert on the city’s hospitality industry. ■

TRANSPORTATION

Largest taxi-medallion lender to give drivers a break

BY RYAN DEFFENBAUGH

T

he city's largest holder of taxi medallion loans will hold off on collecting loan payments as taxi drivers are crushed by the effects of the coronavirus outbreak.

Marblegate Asset Management, a private equity firm that recently purchased a portfolio of 3,500 distressed medallion loans, announced a 30-day payment holiday for individual drivers who own their medallions.

The firm will push back the payments for a month to "help owner-drivers manage their medallion loans...and keep their cars on the road during this challenging period."

The offer is a "good start," according to Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance. But drivers will need more.

"There are barely enough fares right now to meet basic costs of living: groceries, utilities, internet," Desai said. "That's how dire it is."

Marblegate purchased the loans at auction for $350 million on Feb. 20 from the National Credit Union Administration, a federal regulator that took over the medallions from

BUCK ENNIS

HOSPITALITY

multiple failed credit unions.

The deal rattled drivers, who hoped the city could lead an effort to raise enough money for a bailout.

Additional measures Marblegate has since met with drivers and the alliance and pledged to continue considering "measures to ease the burden on owner-drivers and their families during this emergency."

Desai said Marblegate should make sure the payments are de-

ferred automatically and not rely on drivers calling. To her, Marblegate's action should be followed by other lenders and mark the start of a discussion around restructuring the debt for drivers who own medallions.

"Owner-drivers operate cars with partitions, many wheel-chair accessible, and are seasoned drivers," Desai said. "There is a public health interest in keeping the sector going.

Marblegate's actions will very much determine whether or not that happens." ■

MARCH 23, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 9

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FILM FROM PAGE 3

of the 20th century, just as it did on the show, when Sterling Cooper opened a Los Angeles office.

“L.A. has been, for the past 20plus years, the biggest commercialfilming area in the country,” Miller said. “But if you go back 30 years, the majority were filmed in New York.

Go back further, all of them were.”

Los Angeles officially overtook New York in commercial filming in 1989, according to a New York Times report on the market published in 1992. The same article documented how most film and TV production had decamped from New York as well.

In the years since, the fate of commercials has split from those of film and television. A Crain’s analysis of city data found that New York awarded 6,370 film permits to TV shows and movies in 2018, a 34% increase from 2012. Meanwhile, there were 602 permits for commercial filming, down 16% from six years earlier.

FilmLA, the film office of Los Angeles, awarded more than four times as many permits for commercials as New York did last year, when compared with New York’s most recent numbers.

Officials in the cities’ film offices caution that permits do not portray the full picture of activity. Commercial producers often apply for multiple locations to cover their bases.

Those permits are counted toward the L.A. total, while a spokesman for the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment said New York counts a permit only when the applicants film here. That could explain part of the gap.

Nevertheless, directors say the difference in the two markets is clear.

“The cost of shooting in New York has always been a bit higher than shooting in L.A., but in the last several years, the difference has become even greater,” said Marc Grill, a partner and executive producer at production firm O Positive. “And it comes at a time when budgets are becoming ever smaller.”

Production companies point to labor costs as part of the reasson, noting that New York’s unions have a separate contract for commercials that is more costly and restrictive than the one in Los Angeles.

Ford acknowledged the costs are higher but said that’s not the only factor making New York less competitive.

“We can’t tell people where to shoot,” Ford said. “I don’t believe that, even if the contract were less expensive, you would see significant growth. They have moved on to California, Georgia, Canada.”

Smaller credits New York offers a tax credit for commercials, though it is smaller than the one for movies and television. The TV and film tax credit is worth $420 million annually and

pays back 30% to productions. The business too, and we don’t want the commercial credit is $7 million—in production to go elsewhere,” said line with the smaller budgets of Assemblyman Joseph Lentol of commercial work—and pays back Brooklyn, one of the bill’s sponsors.

The gulf between TV and com20% of costs.

“While [the tax credit] has been mercial production was clear during very helpful, the state needs to be a City Council hearing in the fall. more efficient in their auditing and Directors from the TV, film and commercial worlds prodisbursement of funds,” tested a bill that would reGrill said. “We had to keep quire 14 days’ notice beour tax returns open for fore allowing a filming years waiting on the repermit. bates, which we count on NUMBER OF Lawmakers said the rule to keep our New York procommercial would help neighbors and duction feasible.” filming permits businesses overwhelmed “They’re so far behind, awarded in New by constant production. we don’t even count on it,” York in 2018, Film and TV producers said Michael Salzer, presidown 16% from warned the two-week rule dent of MacGuffin Films.

2012 would slow down their A spokesman for Embooming industry. pire State Development Directors for commercials had a said the credits are issued on a yearly basis, rather than the rolling basis more dire message.

“We haven’t experienced a surge for film and television credits.

Productions typically don’t get all the last 10, 15 years. It has been the of the tax credits they’ve applied for opposite,” said Hank Perlman, in a given year, which adds further co-owner of Hungry Man Produccalculations that extend the pro- tions and a director whose work includes the “This Is SportsCenter” cess, the spokesman said.

New York is the only state that has commercials.

With the short time frames for ad a credit exclusively for commercials. Several states—not California, work, Perlman said, the 14-day winhowever—offer commercials the dow for permits would “kill us same incentives as film and TV completely.”

A spokesman for Councilman productions.

Legislation approved in Albany in Robert Holden of Queens, the spon2018 boosted the rebate on com- sor of the bill, said he is still pushing mercial work from 10% to 20% in the for approval. But the legislation has city, closing some of the gap with stalled in committee review since television and film. Upstate com- September.

Although a boom for film and TV mercial shoots get 30%.

“Commercials are part of the production has brought full em-

602

ployment to unions and pushed soundstages to expand, it has not been good news for the commercial business.

Commercials compete for crews, soundstages and street locations throughout the city.

“With so much episodic work in New York, it has driven up the production costs,” said Stephen Orent, managing partner at Station Film.

His company shot roughly half of its commercials in Los Angeles during the past five years and just 10% in New York. More Station Film work went to Canada than to the five boroughs.

There’s another factor slowing work here, one that New York can’t do much about: the weather.

“We can’t promise to shoot on a beach here in March,” MacGuffin’s Salzer said. “You’d very rarely do a car commercial in New York in the winter.”

Miller said the industry is hoping the newly enlarged tax credit, paired with a successful fight against the 14-day rule, could help bring more commercial business to New York.

Most commercials shot in the city were filmed here because they starred local celebrities or were tied to a New York landmark.

The local architecture, talent and mix of locations, as described by O Positive’s Grill, give the city advantages over any market, if the price is right.

New York, he said, is “a great place to shoot for just about any commercial—except a low-budget one.” ■

10 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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INDEX David Amsterdam ------------- P. 16 Margaret Anadu --------------- P. 14 Brian Fenty ---------------------- P. 20 Jenna Foger --------------------- P. 17 Niyum Gandhi ------------------ P. 13 Guru Gowrappan -------------- P. 16 Emily Graham------------------- P. 26 Johanna Greenbaum --------- P. 13 Banu Guler ---------------------- P. 21 Ravi Gupta ---------------------- P. 17 Natasha Holiday --------------- P. 16 Lauren Jupiter ------------------ P. 25 Taylor Justice ------------------- P. 22 Eric Kinariwala ----------------- P. 18 Marielle Kress ------------------ P. 29 Elena Kvochko ------------------ P. 18 Viren Mascarenhas ----------- P. 20 Justin McLeod ------------------ P. 22 Krystle Mobayeni -------------- P. 14 Jon Neidich ---------------------- P. 24 Luke Nikas ---------------------- P. 14 Jeremy Parker ------------------ P. 26 Daniela Perdomo -------------- P. 24 Gilda Perez-Alvarado --------- P. 18 Clint Plummer ------------------ P. 21 Alex Pollak----------------------- P. 29 Jessica Ramos ----------------- P. 13 Sarah Rodriguez --------------- P. 21 Will Sealy ------------------------ P. 29 Stafford Sheehan-------------- P. 28 Jon Sherman -------------------- P. 26

I

n these deeply uncertain times, New Yorkers are going to need plenty of help rebuilding their health and a thriving economy.

The Crain’s New York Business 2020 class of 40 Under 40 honorees certainly will be part of that revival. The young business professionals featured in the coming pages already have been hard at work improving the world. Long before Covid-19, they were thinking of better ways to keep New Yorkers healthy, from ordering prescriptions online to improving preventive care. They also have been thinking up how to invest in impoverished neighborhoods and how to preserve our climate through everything from responsible investing to carbon-friendly vodka. With their vision and dedication, New York City’s future is bright.

CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY PHOTOGRAPHS BY BUCK ENNIS

CrainsNewYork.com/40-under-40-2020

P011_CN_20200323.indd 11

Luvleen Sidhu ------------------ P. 28 Adam Singolda ----------------- P. 12 Andrew Siwo -------------------- P. 25 Allison Stillman ---------------- P. 22 Thomas Sy ----------------------- P. 24 Carolyn Tisch Blodgett ------- P. 20 Sara Wechter ------------------- P. 17 Michael Weisz ------------------ P. 12 Benjamin Witte ---------------- P. 28

3/19/20 8:09 PM

MICHAEL Weisz, 32 Co-founder and president, Yieldstreet

“

C

rowdfunding is well known for clever campaigns on GoFundMe and Kickstarter.

But finance pro Michael Weisz saw a different application for it. He created Yieldstreet to allow individual investors to access financial products typically available only to big firms.

“What we’re building is a platform that will hopefully give millions of people the opportunity to get on the road to financial independence,” Weisz said.

Yieldstreet has become one of the biggest players in the alternative investment game, with $300 million of institutional partner support and a recent milestone of $100 million in interest paid to investors, as well as high-profile board members and partnerships with traditional banks.

For now, Yieldstreet members must be accredited investors, with at least $1 million in assets or a $200,000 annual salary for the past two years. But Weisz ultimately wants to make Yieldstreet’s investments, which range from real estate bridge loans to marine and art financing, more widely available.

The company launched in 2015 after Weisz, a Long Island native who worked in hedge funds, met tech entrepreneur Milind Mehere, who became his co-founder and the company’s chief executive.

Weisz says they wanted to erase a common hurdle for average investors: how to gain access to high-quality investments.

They used Mehere’s tech chops and Weisz’s alternative investment strategies to create Yieldstreet, which allows users to invest $5,000 to $50 million.

“The product is automated and digital,” Weisz said. That helps level the playing field.

THE DIGITAL AD SPACE IS A $300 BILLION MARKET. WE'VE VALIDATED THAT WE'RE ON TO SOMETHING”

ADAM Singolda, 38

— RICHARD CONTI

Founder and CEO, Taboola

A

native of the Tel Aviv suburbs, Adam Singolda spent seven years as an engineer for the Israeli army. The stint taught him discipline and humility, he said, and those qualities proved important in his next venture: launching a content-discovery platform on which users are presented with articles tailored to their interests.

He called it Taboola and relocated to New York City in 2009. For the first five years, the company didn’t generate revenue and struggled to attract venture capital.

“I met with over 30 investors, who said, ‘Kid, you’re really nice, but please shut down the company and come back with a different idea,’” Singolda said.

When funding ran dry, he planned with his board to close Taboola. But the company’s chief technology officer, Lior Golan, made his own investment, which inspired angel investors to chip in. Their optimism soon paid off. In 2012 Taboola broke through by earning around $100,000 per month.

By 2014, it earned $200 million, and it crossed the $1 billion mark last year. A soon-to-be-completed merger with rival Outbrain is expected to push sales to $2 billion this year.

Taboola, once in danger of closing, is now a unicorn with at least a 10 figure valuation.

For now, Singolda is prioritizing the advancement of Taboola’s growth over an initial public offering.

“The digital ad space is a $300 billion market,” Singolda said. “We’ve validated that we’re on to something.”

— GERALD SCHIFMAN

12 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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Chief development officer, Brooklyn Navy Yard

J

ohanna Greenbaum has spent her career deftly jumping between the public and private sectors.

Greenbaum, who held multiple high-ranking roles in the Bloomberg administration, has worked as a land-use lawyer, and she spearheaded external affairs for the Greenpoint Landing development and was director of planning and development for Alphabet’s “urban innovation” wing, Sidewalk Labs.

So it made sense last year when she became chief development officer at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where public policy and private initiatives intersect.

“It’s a really exciting place for innovation, for innovators, for creators and makers and people who are producing things,” she said.

Greenbaum is responsible for leasing the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp.’s 300 acres of city-owned industrial real estate.

In that role, she oversaw the launch of New York’s first autonomousvehicle program, which now caters to the navy yard’s 500 tenant companies and their 11,000 employees. She worked with grocery chain Wegmans on opening its first New York City location. And in February, the navy yard welcomed Google’s research arm, X, which explores “moonshot” technologies.

During the next two years, Greenbaum expects the yard’s workforce to nearly double—to 20,000. It’s far from the 70,000 workers who labored there during its 20th-century heyday. But Greenbaum said she believes today’s creative and technology jobs offer opportunities similar to the ones created by the old shipbuilding positions.

“This kind of space,” she said, “is important to creating middle-class jobs.”

40s SNAPSHOT

nt,

JOHANNA Greenbaum, 39

17

Number of CEOs

— WILL BREDDERMAN

JESSICA Ramos, 34 New York State senator

W

ith one year in public office complete, state Sen. Jessica Ramos is already changing how Albany does business—and how business gets done in New York City.

Elected as part of the progressive wave that took over the state Legislature in 2018, Ramos arrived at the statehouse having spent several years working for Mayor Bill de Blasio and for powerful labor unions such as 32BJ SEIU. The latter experience seemed to shape the issues she championed in the Legislature.

She led the effort to pass the controversial Securing Wages Earned Against Theft Act, allowing workers alleging wage theft to place a lien against their employer’s assets.

She also spearheaded a measure to legalize electric bikes used by food delivery workers, as well as electric scooters beloved by hip professionals in other states.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo vetoed both bills late last year—then proposed his own versions of them in January.

“We all understand how important it is that we resolve these issues,” Ramos said.

The senator plans to push more measures relevant to business interests before finishing her first term. She’s advancing one idea likely to bring her into conflict with her former employer and brickand-mortar operators: legislation to forbid street vendor restrictions. De Blasio warned the proposal would cause “chaos.”

Ramos argues the current system has slapped immigrant communities with unfair enforcement and hurt economic opportunity.

“The law,” she said, “hasn’t caught up with the current expressions of entrepreneurial spirit.” — W.B.

“

THE LAW HASN’T CAUGHT UP WITH THE CURRENT EXPRESSIONS OF ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT”

NIYUM Gandhi, 36

Chief financial officer, Mount Sinai Health System

A

few years ago Mount Sinai Health System ran ads with a tagline: “If our beds are filled, it means we failed.”

It’s Niyum Gandhi’s job to spread that ethos to the system’s eight hospitals, more than 400 ambulatory care locations and 42,000 employees. He acknowledges that the goal is a drastic shift from what he described as “a sick care system that treats illness and prevents death.”

Earlier this month, he was tapped to tackle that goal as CFO of the multibillion-dollar health system.

In his previous role, as executive vice president, Gandhi forged new agreements with some of the area’s largest insurers to get paid for higher-quality, lower-cost care. He also set up programs for doctors to improve metrics, such as screening rates for diabetes or depression.

Gandhi, a central Pennsylvania native and Harvard graduate, started his career in health care consulting at Oliver Wyman.

He expected to work there for at least another decade. Then he landed a pitch meeting for the firm at Mount Sinai.

He was scheduled to give a 60-minute presentation to Mount Sinai’s top executives. By the 75-minute mark, Sinai’s CEO, Dr. Kenneth Davis, asked who had completed the kind of transformation he was proposing. Gandhi told him Sinai could be the first. The next day, Sinai asked him to come in to interview for the job.

“I felt I would regret it the rest of my life,” Gandhi said, “if I didn’t drop consulting and take it.”

— JONATHAN LAMANTIA

MARCH 23, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 13

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40s SNAPSHOT

KRYSTLE Mobayeni, 38 Co-founder and CEO, BentoBox

K

rystle Mobayeni was running a small digital agency with several restaurants among her clients in the early 2010s when she noticed how frustrated restaurant owners were with how expensive and time-consuming it was to manage their online presence.

So Moyabeni founded BentoBox, then a simple contentmanagement system that gave restaurants tools to gain control of their online presence. They could upload menus, for example, share press and receive inquiry forms.

“Knowing that restaurants are tough businesses with slim margins, we didn’t want to be another cost center for them,” she said. She launched a tool so clients could sell gift cards online, then added other features like merchandise sales, event ticketing, catering purchases and online ordering.

Restaurants see six times the return on the money they pay BentoBox each year, Mobayeni said.

“She was able to convince us that the company can be a meaningful component of a restaurant’s revenue generation,” said Peter Mavrovitis, co-founder and partner at Enlightened Hospitality Investments, a fund affiliated with Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group. EHI invested in BentoBox last year.

Mobayeni wants BentoBox eventually to power every interaction between a restaurant and its guests. Among other things, that means helping restaurants track how their online efforts are bringing people in the door.

“This is an industry that’s given me some of the best experiences of my life,” said Mobayeni, who dines out about four times a week. “Helping restaurant owners be successful motivates me.”

— CARA EISENPRESS

“

HELPING RESTAURANT OWNERS BE SUCCESSFUL MOTIVATES ME”

5

Number of 40s who work in the food and beverage space

MARGARET Anadu, 38 Head of urban investment, Goldman Sachs

W

LUKE Nikas, 37

Partner, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

L

uke Nikas has successfully litigated cases in the banking and real estate industries, but he is perhaps best known for his work on behalf of the arts.

Nikas has handled countless copyright and trademark cases and has recovered priceless pieces

by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol.

He is a champion of freedom of expression—which he hopes will help artists, writers and scientists build on the work of those who came before them.

“There are cases that stand out because I was helping advance really important principles that I think benefit society and serve broader public interests,” he said.

Working closely with artists has informed his tastes as an art collector. The married father of four counts Deborah Kass, Andy Warhol and Hank Willis Thomas among his favorites.

“I look at art from the knowledge of having litigated all these cases and thinking about what kind of creative decisions went into it,” Nikas said.

Athletes’ determination and mental toughness also inspires him, he said. The SUNY Albany and Harvard grad is an avid marathon runner and fan of extreme sports.

The upstate New York native says that in 10 years, he hopes to still be protecting his clients and advancing legal principles that serve the greater good.

“The bottom line is: You’re never done doing either of those things,” Nikas said. “People always need your protection.”

all Street pros travel the world trying to find the next impactful investment opportunity. Margaret Anadu’s approach is different: She visits impoverished neighborhoods to find out what the residents would fix up if they had the money.

During Anadu’s 15 years at Goldman Sachs’ urban investment group, she has led about $9 billion worth of investments. That includes rescuing Harlem’s Carver Federal Savings, restoring the Loew’s Kings Theatre in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and launching Citibike. In Newark, her group has funded affordable and market-rate housing, schools and office towers.

“My job,” she said, “is moving private capital to places where it doesn’t naturally flow.”

Goldman was investing less than $50 million per year in underserved communities when Anadu joined. Last year it poured $1.3 billion into such projects. Lest anyone think it is mere philanthropy, Anadu notes the investments her 30-member team makes consistently outperform Goldman’s overall equity returns. Those results ensure her group’s work is sustainable. She was made a partner in 2018.

Anadu was raised by her mother in Texas and was one of the only minority women in her class at Harvard to get a computer science degree. After joining Goldman in 2003, she thought she would stick around only until she saved enough for law school.

Her mother reminds her that despite her success, Mark Zuckerberg and other Harvard students have done even better. Anadu doesn’t mind.

“I feel like I have a new job every year,” she said.

— AARON ELSTEIN

“

MY JOB IS MOVING PRIVATE CAPITAL TO PLACES WHERE IT DOESN’T NATURALLY FLOW”

— TELISHA BRYAN 14 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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Mount MountSinai SinaiHealth HealthSystem SystemCelebrates Celebrates

Niyum NiyumGandhi Gandhi

The Mount Sinai Health System and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai proudly honor Niyum Gandhi and all the professionals Crain’s New York Business selected as 40 under 40 honorees.

Niyum Gandhi Executive Vice President and Chief Population Health Officer Mount Sinai Health System

mountsinai.org

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40s SNAPSHOT

58

%

Portion who have a postgraduate degree

DAVID Amsterdam, 38

President, Capital Markets and Eastern region, Colliers International

W

NATASHA Holiday, 37

Managing director, municipal finance group, RBC Capital Markets

S

s Verizon tried to turn around its media brand with the $9 billion acquisitions of AOL and Yahoo, its top leadership last year turned to Guru Gowrappan to help with its reinvention.

The move was a welcome return for the tech executive, who previously spent five years with Yahoo.

Gowrappan’s first priority was to create a cohesive culture for the company’s newly condensed brands.

“You had results that didn’t excite people. You had people leaving. The markets and press aren’t saying nice things,” said Gowrappan, who left a leadership role at Alibaba for Verizon.

He started by removing the company’s name, Oath, and replacing it with the parent company’s. He is finding it time-consuming to change Verizon’s business model “from advertising-based to include more subscriptions and transactions,” he said. “That is going to be a key pillar of our evolution.”

Verizon closed 2019 with even revenues, breaking a streak of losing quarters for brands such as HuffPost and TechCrunch.

Gowrappan, who grew up in India and arrived in the United States to get his computer science master’s degree at the University of Southern California, got his break in tech by working on the strategy team at Overture in the early 2000s. The startup was an early part of the search advertising business that sold to Yahoo for $1.6 billion.

“I’ve started a lot of chapters,” he said. “I’m coming full circle here.”

uccess is not a singular endeavor for Natasha Holiday.

She believes in empowering others in her work and in her private life.

Holiday helped secure $2 billion in bonds to build the World Trade Center in 2012. That earned her an elevator ride to the thenunfinished buildings’ breezy upper floors, where safety netting hung instead of windows.

That’s just a piece of the more than $12 billion in municipal bond deals she has had a hand in during the past 12 years in New York, Philadelphia and Washington, as well as Connecticut and Massachusetts.

While still in high school, she worked with Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, an Ohio Democrat who died in 2008. Tubbs Jones taught her that leadership is not just about wielding power and making decisions.

“The congresswoman exhibited leadership through empowerment and grace,” Holiday said. “She was effective in bringing people together.”

Holiday credits her success to other strong female mentors, too, including Lois Scott, Chicago’s current chief financial officer. “She taught me to focus on what’s next— to take the long-term view,” Holiday said.

Holiday worked for the Bloomberg administration in the Office of Immigrant Affairs.

She and her husband established a charity, Holiday Party, which has raised almost $200,000 to fund opportunities at iMentor, the Council for Urban Professionals and other organizations.

“I want to make an impact on the world,” she said, “and I want to make an impact on the community.”

— RYAN DEFFENBAUGH

— JANON FISHER

GURU Gowrappan, 39 CEO, Verizon Media Group

A

“

I’M COMING FULL CIRCLE HERE”

orking for one of the largest commercial office landlords in Manhattan early in his career, David Amsterdam saw the dark side of the city’s lucrative office-leasing business.

While competing to win coveted assignments to rent a landlord’s space, brokers were undermining not only their competitors but also their colleagues.

“They weren’t doing what was in the best interest of the client,” Amsterdam said. “They were doing whatever it took to duke it out to win for themselves.”

Since taking over as president of Colliers International’s Eastern region and the national leader of its capital markets team two years ago, he has vowed to bring the commercial real estate services firm into the big leagues of New York brokerages a different way.

“Putting culture first is a total game changer for us,” Amsterdam said.

“For me that has meant passing on recruiting big names in the industry to grab revenue if that person is not the right fit. It’s about cultivating teamwork and having the right team.”

He estimates that leasing volume has expanded 75% since he joined the firm, and it has increasingly won large, highly contested assignments for clients including EmblemHealth, Evercore and Fortress.

“You’re hearing Colliers’ name mentioned in deals we never competed for in the past,” Amsterdam said. “It’s because clients see the difference in how we operate.”

— DANIEL GEIGER

“

PUTTING CULTURE FIRST IS A TOTAL GAME CHANGER FOR US”

16 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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SARA Wechter, 39

RAVI Gupta, 36

ara Wechter began her career at Citi more than 15 years ago as an investment banking analyst. But her path to human resources really began in 2013, when she became CEO Michael Corbat’s chief of staff. He put her in charge of talent and later diversity, an area she takes seriously.

“Diversity changes the conversation,” Wechter said. “It changes the way you look at things. It’s really just good for business.”

Now as Citi’s global head of human resources—a position she has held since 2018, helping to oversee more than 200,000 workers—she is making inclusion a priority.

Citi aims to have 40% of roles at the assistant vice president and managing director level held by female employees globally and 8% by black employees in the United States by the end of next year. The firm publicly discloses its pay-equity gap, and it set benchmarks to narrow the margin. Wechter, an Emory grad, says Citi’s inclusivity measures, such as standardizing parental leave, have changed business practices in other countries where the firm sets up shop.

The New Jersey native, wife and mom of two said she eventually hopes diversity is so commonplace it’s no longer part of the conversation. In the meantime, being transparent about Citi’s goals can set standards for inclusion, she said.

“The only way you can drive change—especially when you come to work at a place like Citi—is for people to know what you’re trying to solve,” Wechter said.

— TELISHA BRYAN

Co-founder and managing partner, Arena

F

ollowing President Donald Trump’s election, Ravi Gupta, a veteran of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, founded Arena to recruit, fund and train progressive candidates and operatives in six states including Gupta’s native New York.

The left-wing wave that left Albany in solidly Democratic hands last year owes something to the organization’s political action committee.

But Gupta hasn’t been content to coast on his midterm victories.

Last year he organized the Arena Academy, which trained 1,000 people across the country, more than a quarter of them New Yorkers.

He describes the training as a classic case of disruption, upsetting sclerotic established systems in American politics.

“The way the Democratic Party traditionally works,” Gupta said, “is incredibly inefficient in terms of talent.”

Campaigns too often recruit staff members from old boy networks, he argues—while energetic young activists emerge from university political science programs without understanding how to run an electoral organization. The Arena Academy aims to correct the problem by creating a cadre of skilled, well-connected left-ofcenter warriors ready to take the field against the GOP. The Staten Islander also is bringing the fight home by establishing the Five Borough Fellowship, which cultivates a new class of civic leaders from the activist, small business and nonprofit communities. The six-month program trains participants on topics ranging from government reform to publicspace design.

“It’s a way to organize our thinking for the city of New York for the next 10 years,” he said.

“

THERE’S GREAT SCIENCE IN NEW YORK”

JENNA Foger, 35

Senior vice president, science and technology, Alexandria Equities

T

o lease office space in the city, most landlords search for a tenant.

To help fill the more than 700,000-square-foot life sciences campus that Alexandria Real Estate Equities developed and operates on the East Side of Manhattan, Jenna Foger instead focused on creating tenants.

Unlike other areas of the country—such as Cambridge, Mass.—where the life-sciences sector is booming, New York has not established itself as a major industry hub. Foger and other executives, however, say they believe that will change dramatically.

Because the city doesn’t have as many established life-sciences tenants, Foger grooms startups and encourages research to blossom from academia into business. With an undergraduate degree in cognitive neuroscience, a master’s in biotechnology and earlier stints in venture capital, Foger has the mix of skills to recognize promising ideas.

“There’s great science in New York,” she said. “We’re playing a role in launching the next medicine or treatment that could be groundbreaking.”

Foger recently reached a deal to bring Kallyope to the campus. She was impressed by the company’s research into links between the brain and gut in treating health issues. Kallyope started with 2,000 square feet and has since grown to 20,000.

“You can have one little protein out of place and it causes terrible consequences,” Foger said. “Helping to discover the companies that — DANIEL GIEGER have smart solutions is what my job is about.”

— WILL BREDDERMAN MARCH 23, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 17

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40s SNAPSHOT

18

%

Portion who immigrated to the United States

ELENA Kvochko, 33

Global Information Security Executive, Bank of America

E ERIC Kinariwala, 36 Founder and CEO, Capsule

B

or Gilda Perez-Alvarado, working in hotels and the real estate industry runs in the family. The executive is the granddaughter of a former hotel owner and the daughter of a woman who managed what was once the largest hotel in Costa Rica, where Perez-Alvarado was born.

Today, the 39-year-old self-described nomad works with investors from all over the world, including Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

At JLL, she works with investors looking to purchase in the Americas lodging market. Perez-Alvarado collectively produced $1.5 billion in sales from April 2018 to April 2019.

Under her purview, JLL has closed notable marquee deals in New York, including the $310 million sale of the St. Regis New York in 2019 and the $600 million sale of the Plaza Hotel in 2018.

The executive, who has been with JLL for more than 15 years, credits much of her success to people on her teams.

“You can’t do what you do alone,” Perez-Alvarado said. “The biggest challenge has to do with general macroeconomics and making sure that we are growing as a firm even when we are starting to see a little bit of deceleration across the sector.”

efore he could compete with CVS and Walgreens, Eric Kinariwala understood that New Yorkers needed to know Capsule’s name.

So the online pharmacy blanketed subway cars and taxis with ads telling people to ask their doctor to send their prescriptions to Capsule, which delivers in the five boroughs.

The son of Indian immigrants, Kinariwala grew up outside Detroit. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and Stanford Graduate School of Business, and spent his early career working as an investment analyst.

A bad experience at a Lower East Side pharmacy inspired him to start Capsule in 2015.

Capsule gives users options to chat with a pharmacist or request a refill by text.

“There is a real benefit to being able to start with a blank sheet of paper with your only objective being what is the absolute right thing to do for the consumer,” Kinariwala said.

The company has raised a combined $270 million to support a national rollout. That expansion has been slow to materialize, as Capsule navigates state pharmacy regulations, invests in technology and expands its team to about 400 people.

As Capsule has grown, its behemoth competitors have tried to keep up. CVS offers same-day delivery for $7.99. Walgreens and its Duane Read brand charge $4.99 for next-day drop-offs. Kinariwala says Capsule is holding its own.

“We are delighting the customer in a way that conventional pharmacies haven’t been able to do for 50 to 100 years.”

— LIZETH BELTRAN

— JONATHAN LAMANTIA

GILDA Perez-Alvarado, 39

Americas CEO of hotels and hospitality and global hotel desk lead, JLL

F

“

YOU HAVE TO KEEP PEOPLE MOTIVATED AND KEEP THEM FOCUSED”

lena Kvochko started mountain climbing as a way to raise money for Refugees International. She also hoped to inspire other people to believe in something greater than themselves.

“I wanted to pick something complex and difficult for myself so that my colleagues and peers would be encouraged to push their own boundaries,” she said.

Cybersecurity is another cause for Kvochko, an information security executive at Bank of America. Early in her career, she worked in telecommunications at the World Bank when that institution and tech companies were racing to bring connectivity to remote communities around the world. There was no effort to make the infrastructure secure, she said.

So she moved to the World Economic Forum, where she led an initiative to build better cybersecurity partnerships, assess risk and tackle problems that no one company could do on its own.

Cybersecurity, she said, “requires a global response.”

Today at BofA, she focuses on cybersecurity operations, cyber crime and fraud prevention.

Kvochko is a proponent of what she calls holistic security: the ability to address threats no matter where they come from.

In her life, and in her work, Kvochko continues to takes her cue from mountain climbing. “Cybersecurity attracts people who are not afraid to dream, who are ready to push boundaries of what is deemed possible,” she said. “Whoever does not risk does not summit.”

— JUDITH MESSINA

“

WHOEVER DOES NOT RISK DOES NOT SUMMIT”

18 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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BRIAN Fenty, 33

SA R 38

Co-founder and CEO, TodayTix

“

WE HAVE BROUGHT NEW PEOPLE TO THEATER”

B

rian Fenty concedes his career arc is “super bizarre” as he sits in the Tribeca office of TodayTix, the ticketing app for Broadway shows and other live entertainment he co-founded in

2013.

He appeared in live shows around New York as a child actor.

He took orders from George Steinbrenner as an intern in the Yankees’ marketing department. He led investments in brands such as Sweetgreen and Mackenzie Childs while in his 20s at a private-equity firm.

He even helped produce—at 23—a Broadway revival of Oleanna.

The show was a “total bomb,” he said. But it revealed to him how Broadway ticketing somehow had missed the digital age.

“There was no way to sell tickets that was new or interesting,” Fenty said.

Eventually he was able to use his ensemble of professional experience to launch TodayTix as a solution to that problem.

Today the company captures about 10% of Broadway tickets sales through its app. That’s quite a change from six years ago, when less than 1% of Broadway tickets were sold on mobile platforms.

“About 65% of our users are millennials,” Fenty said. “We have brought new people to theater.”

With $73 million in new venture funding, Fenty said the company hopes to move into producing live events and expand its reach while preserving its reputation with users for not price gouging.

He wants his clients to think “Wow, I love that ticketing company,” he said. — RYAN DEFFENBAUGH

Dir Apo

S

VIREN Mascarenhas, 39 Partner, King & Spalding LLP

CAROLYN Tisch Blodgett, 35 Head of Global Marketing, Peloton

C

arolyn Tisch Blodgett’s arrival at Peloton resulted from the kind words of a friend.

After years of working on product launches and marketing projects at major brands, a former business school classmate put in her name.

“My friend interviewed for a VP of brand role in spring of 2016,” Blodgett said. “And as the CMO at the time laid out her dream person, my friend said, ‘I’m not the right person for this job, but I have someone that is for you.’”

Four years later Blodgett is Peloton’s chief marketing officer, and she has turned the startup into a global fitness brand. In the past year Blodgett helped launch Peloton’s second product, the Tread. Peloton has seen more than 100% sales growth year-over-year since 2016, and it boasts more than 1.4 million members.

“I’ve always loved fitness,” said Blodgett, who starts most of her days jumping on her Peloton. “But I never really saw it being a career.”

For Blodgett, working at Peloton means helping people become the best versions of themselves. But she wanted many people to have that privilege.

“When I got there, I felt like we needed to make the bike more accessible to more people,” Blodgett said.

She helped launch the Comeback Program, which allows an individual to send in a story of someone Peloton should sponsor. Peloton then chooses 50 recipients each month to give bikes. Blodgett has been awed by the program. “The stories are just incredible.”

— LIZETH BELTRAN

“

I FELT LIKE WE NEEDED TO MAKE THE BIKE MORE ACCESSIBLE TO MORE PEOPLE”

W

hen Viren Mascarenhas arrived at the University of Richmond from India in 1998 as a freshman, he decided to join the mock trial group. That decision hooked him on law for life.

“I loved being on my feet, arguing mock trial cases,” Mascarenhas said. He studied at Columbia Law School, where he is now an adjunct professor, and this time he fell in love with international law. Today he is a partner at King and Spalding in the international arbitration and global disputes practice.

He typically represents clients, often natural resource companies, involved in high-stakes battles with governments, such as Chevron’s long-running battle against the Ecuadorian government.

“How these disputes play out because of what is happening in the global economy is one feature of why I love these cases,” Mascarenhas said. “These are complicated projects that require specialized expertise, and the more I did, the more I was asked to do.”

Mascarenhas started working in human rights law at the International Court of Justice on Bosnian genocide and as a legal officer at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a war crimes tribunal. Today he continues to work with Human Rights Watch and the Global Justice Center.

In his downtime, he tries to re-create Indian food the way his mom used to make it—a more challenging task. “That’s a work in progress.”

— JUDITH MESSINA

20 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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40s SNAPSHOT

SARAH Rodriguez, 38 Director of Development, Apollo Theater

S

arah Rodriguez is likely the only person on this list who owes her career epiphany to Meryl Streep and Liev Schreiber.

Rodriguez, now the director of development for the Apollo Theater in Harlem, was an intern for the Public Theater in 2006 when she saw the acting legends in separate Shakespeare in the Park performances, which she called a “profound experience.”

She ditched a potential law career to devote herself to arts and culture, leaving hometown Miami for good to settle in New York, where she’s worked and raised funds for an impressive list of cultural institutions, including the American Ballet Theater and El Museo del Barrio. In 2015 she came to the Apollo, where she has helped double the institution’s fundraising to more than $12 million last year.

Now Rodriguez and her colleagues will have to step it up even more.

Fundraising is always a challenge for the institution, which became a nonprofit in 1991, pitting it against New York City’s older and more centrally located arts organizations. This year Rodriguez will help lead the Apollo’s first expansion in its 86-year history; it will add two smaller performance spaces.

The theater famous for launching the careers of Billie Holiday and James Brown, among others, is vying to become the eminent home of black cultural expression, not only in this city, but in the country.

“It’s a big responsibility,” Rodriguez said. “That’s why I work here.

I’m excited to push this mission forward.”

— RICHARD CONTI

Portion who grew up in the city

BANU Guler, 32 Co-founder and CEO, Co-Star Astrology

A

s the daughter of Pakistani and Turkish immigrants, Banu Guler learned to read palms at a very young age.

“I think in general, Turkish people are a little bit emotionally repressed,” Guler said. “So fortune-telling is one of the few ways that people can have really intimate conversations.”

After years of working in fashion, Guler took a leap of faith and co-founded the company Co-Star Astrology in 2017.

It has since gained a cult following by millennials, with 7.5 million registered users as of December 2019.

Despite astrology’s popularity because of its prognostic aspect, Guler emphasizes that it can, in fact, change people’s lives.

“We get letters from young women talking about how Co-Star helped them make these huge decisions,” Guler said. “Leaving abusive boyfriends or going back to school.”

Because of this, Guler and her team have focused on building new elements that can help bring people together.

“I think right now there seems to be only one model of people connecting on the internet, and it’s really bad for mental health and for human connection,” Guler said.

“I’ve always thought there was this opportunity to intervene in rising levels of loneliness, anxiety and depression,” the CEO added.

In April 2019 Co-Star closed its seed round of $5.2 million from Maveron, Aspect, 14w and the Female Founders Fund. To date, Co-Star has raised $5.95 million.

— LIZETH BELTRAN

“ CLINT Plummer, 39

CEO, Ravenswood Generating

C

lint Plummer spent the first 15 years of his career pioneering clean energy in New York state.

Next he’ll focus on cleaning up one of the city’s biggest carbon offenders.

Plummer recently became chief executive officer of the Ravenswood Generating Station, a 28-acre, four-turbine natural-gas plant on the Long Island City waterfront that produces almost 20% of the city’s electricity on peak days.

Recent state and city carbon-cutting legislation, which aims to virtually eliminate the production of greenhouse gases in the next three decades, has put the plant on notice.

Plummer was hired to reimagine Ravenswood’s place in the green energy grid of the not-sodistant future. He’ll take over plans already underway to build the city’s biggest battery on the plant’s property, with enough storage to transmit more than 300 megawatts. He also hopes to use the site to plug offshore wind power into the grid.

“Transitioning from energy systems of today to the technology of tomorrow is what I wanted to be a part of,” Plummer said. “Getting to figure out how a power plant as big and important as Ravenswood can pivot to the future is exactly the challenge I wanted.”

Plummer was an early believer in green energy. He spearheaded construction of a wind farm that powered Block Island. As a senior executive at the European wind giant Orsted, he helped the firm build an almost 900-megawatt offshore wind farm.

— DANIEL GIEGER

nts, nies, with on’s the

35

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WE GET LETTERS FROM YOUNG WOMEN TALKING ABOUT HOW CO-STAR HELPED THEM MAKE THESE HUGE DECISIONS”

“

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TRANSITIONING FROM ENERGY SYSTEMS OF TODAY . . . IS WHAT I WANTED TO BE A PART OF”

g in rnanian r at one, he man Jus-

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SINA

MARCH 23, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 21

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40s SNAPSHOT

JUSTIN McLeod, 35 Founder and CEO, Hinge

“

Co-Founder and President, Unite Us

T

YOU CAN BE FLAWED ENOUGH BUT PERFECT FOR A PERSON”

— JANON FISHER

Number of honorees who served in the military

TAYLOR Justice, 36

F

ew people have had the story of how they met their spouse chronicled like Hinge dating app founder Justin McLeod.

The CEO of one of the most romanticized digital dating aides had his story featured in The New York Times Modern Love section, which was then turned into a Netflix episode.

It’s a story of how opposites attract. Dev Patel plays McLeod in the episode. Catherine Keener is the journalist who spurs him to fight for love. What came next wasn’t quite the church scene from “The Graduate.” But it wasn’t far from it. He wooed her back a month from her wedding date to another man, and the rest is history. In 2019 they had their first child together, a son.

Though McLeod found love without his app, it shares the same romantic core. Hinge is not for hookups. As it’s slogan says, it’s the dating app designed to be deleted. But that doesn’t mean the company’s going nowhere.

It’s parent company, Match Group, cleared $2 billion last year, according to its SEC filing. This year Hinge plans to hire at least 70 employees. This group of cyber-yentas is setting up a date every three seconds.

To quote McLeod’s favorite love song, “You & Me,” “They say everything, it happens for a reason. You can be flawed enough but perfect for a person.”

He’s given all of us not-so-perfect people hope for a match.

2

ALLISON Stillman, 39

Partner, Mayer Brown

A

fter graduating from law school in 2005, Allison Stillman spent a year as a law clerk before joining Skadden Arps as an associate. Stillman, a native New Yorker with interest in the local indie rock scene, didn’t expect to stay at Skadden long term.

“I was considering going in house in a couple of years to a record label,” Stillman said. “But at the time I was making the switch, Mayer Brown was representing Google. They were looking for someone with my background to join their team. I thought, ‘That sounds really interesting, why don’t I see it through and reevaluate after that?’”

Mayer Brown was hired to defend Google against the allegation that its YouTube subsidiary engaged in massive copyright infringement by letting users upload videos owned

by Viacom. Stillman helped represent Google, and a judge ultimately did not find YouTube liable.

More recently she has helped streaming giants such as Spotify and Pandora navigate the Music Modernization Act, which was enacted into federal law in October 2018 to refresh copyright regulations.

Stillman, now a partner overseeing a five-member legal team, relishes working in this growing space.

“I think what I love most about intellectual-property law and the copyright area in which I practice is that it’s really complex and speaks to my academic sensibilities,” Stillman said. “But at the same time, it has a lot of real-world implications that are easy to see. You observe it as a music fan, like I am.”

aylor Justice is confident the company he co-founded in 2013 can change the health care market to reimburse organizations that help provide services, such as access to food and housing, that contribute to good health.

Unite Us has built and scaled a technology platform that connects health and social services providers to integrate social determinants into patient care. The platform also tracks the outcomes of those efforts.

In the company’s early days, it focused on the military and the veterans community. Justice soon realized, however, there was a much larger opportunity within the broader health care space. Unite Us has expanded to Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries and populations with behavioral health and substance-use challenges.

“We have a vision for this space—it’s not about referrals, it’s about transformation and making sure people are being taken care of,” Justice said.

He believes the health care industry is ready for the shift, and bigname players have bought into that vision.

CVS Health contracted with Unite Us to help Aetna’s Medicaid and dual-eligible members access social services more easily. Unite Us also launched a partnership with Kaiser Permanente.

To date, Unite Us has raised about $45 million. The company recently expanded its Manhattan space, and its headcount tripled in the past year to more than 150 employees. It now has eight offices nationwide.

“We’re starting to hit that hypergrowth phase,” Justice said.

— JENNIFER HENDERSON

“

IT’S ABOUT TRANSFORMATION AND MAKING SURE PEOPLE ARE BEING TAKEN CARE OF

— GERALD SCHIFMAN 22 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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3/19/20 5:31 PM

Congratulations to our America’s CEO of JLL Hotels & Hospitality, Gilda Perez-Alvarado, for being recognized as one of Crain’s New York Business 40 under 40 honorees.

Your JLL family continues to be proud of you and everything you have accomplished, both in New York and globally, within the Hotels & Hospitality industry.

Congratulations on this welldeserved recognition.

us.jll.com/Hotels

CN019631.indd 1

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40s SNAPSHOT

36.6

Average age of the honorees

JON Neidich, 38 CEO, Golden Age Hospitality

H

THOMAS Sy, 39

ow do you create a standout restaurant among the more than 25,000 establishments in New York City? Food, design and a tasty burger help. But these days a restaurant must tell a story.

Jon Neidich, who majored in English at Brown, is one of the city’s rising star restaurateurs, partly because he brings a storyteller’s flair to each new opening.

Take Acme, a down-and-out NoHo Cajun restaurant that Neidich’s group, Golden Age Hospitality, turned into a bistro with a basement nightclub in 2012. The Happiest Hour, which opened in 2014, is a tropical, cocktail-focused spot in the Village. “We come up with a narrative and make sure it informs everything we do,” Neidich said.

Golden Age–run establishments generated $35 million in revenue last year. Neidich is now focused on growing the hospitality group in a more profitable direction. The native New Yorker kicked off his hospitality career working for famed hotelier Andre Balazs, starting as a host and busboy and rising to senior management at Hotels AB. Now Neidich is getting into the hotel game himself, taking over the food-and-beverage program at the Wythe in Williamsburg. Neidich hatched the idea with Jed Walentas, an owner of real estate firm Two Trees, which operates the Wythe. Golden Age’s splashy new restaurant there, Le Crocodile, opened late last year.

It’s part of Neidich’s plan to transition from standalone restaurant-bars into large-scale F&B operations for hotels. He eventually hopes to open hotels under the Golden Age banner.

— RICHARD CONTI

Managing director, New York Life Investments

A DANIELA Perdomo, 34 Co-founder and CEO, goTenna

D

aniela Perdomo can thank Superstorm Sandy for her success.

Stranded in Brooklyn without cell service in the wake of the 2012 storm, she confronted a fundamental flaw in the communications ecosystem—its reliance on a fixed, centralized infrastructure—and began working on a solution.

By summer 2014, she and her brother Jorge had debuted the first version of goTenna: a slender, 5-inch-long device that when paired with a smartphone can send messages to other paired smartphones without the aid of a cell tower or a router.

The hardware was the first step in fulfilling the Perdomos’ dream of a low-cost, decentralized communications system that could be used by ordinary citizens as well as rescue workers and other first responders. Next up was a “mesh” networking goTenna; it connects dozens of devices in a daisy chain of low-frequency signals crisscrossing as far as 65 square miles.

In 2018 the Brooklyn startup introduced goTenna Pro, which soldiers can use to check one another’s whereabouts; firefighting squads can use it to guide an engine to safety. The company has won seven-figure contracts with the Defense and Homeland Security departments and state and local public-safety outfits.

Deals can take a year to go from commitment to revenue. But Perdomo expects this year’s sales to more than triple those of 2019.

“The mission has always been that we are creating a new layer in the communications stack,” Perdomo said. “We were very clear [it would be] something completely new.”

— MATTHEW FLAMM

“

THE MISSION HAS ALWAYS BEEN TO CREATE SOMETHING COMPLETELY NEW”

s a teenager, Thomas Sy made a fairly drastic move by leaving the Philippines to start a new life in the United States.

He initially joined the ranks of Valley Forge Military Academy, which provided structure. He later moved north to enroll at Fordham University, which carried its own challenge: To pay for school, Sy worked 40 to 50 hours per week at the then-nascent BlackRock.

Managing a three-year internship with the financial firm was particularly difficult during finals, but Sy learned from the job experience.

“Fortunately, I had patient mentors early on who were willing to teach me different coding skills,” Sy said. “That’s really made an impact on me today about the importance of mentoring other people.”

Two decades later Sy runs the multiple-asset solutions team at New York Life Investments, managing an $11 billion portfolio whose customers include pensioners and retirees.

In overseeing a 12-member team, Sy prioritizes making space for trainees with diverse backgrounds. He found one of his previous interns through Girls Who Invest, a nonprofit devoted to helping women embark on careers in asset management. The next intern he mentored ultimately moved into the robotics field after completing a stint with New York Life Investments.

“That’s why I’m very engaged with mentoring, one-on-one, because I believe I can actually measure my impact,” Sy said. “That drives my charitable work.”

“

WE COME UP WITH A NARRATIVE AND MAKE SURE IT INFORMS EVERYTHING WE DO”

LA

Ma

A

S she that Ju

“

thre ego hum “I hire Th whe a sn you

— GERALD SCHIFMAN

24 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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ANDREW Siwo, 39 Director of sustainable investments and climate solutions, New York State Common Fund

A

ndrew Siwo said he’s always known he wanted a career in solving problems. His latest challenge is a big one: What is the role of New York’s $210 billion retirement fund in fighting climate change?

In January Siwo was appointed the first director of sustainable investments and climate solutions for the New York State Common Fund, the third-largest public pension plan in the U.S. As activists push the state to divest from any contributors to climate change, part of Siwo’s job is to identify $20 billion in investments that advance the fund’s green initiatives and deliver returns.

“Climate change is a recognized risk to the pension fund,” Siwo said. “My role is to help de-risk the portfolio.”

Siwo, who was born in Kenya and moved to Ohio at age 4, is a leader in the field of impact and mission-driven investing. That interest was sparked when he was an investment banker in JPMorgan Chase’s sustainable finance unit.

“These are investments that have this dual objective of improving something in the world and also making money,” Siwo said.

He recognized impact investing as a way to combine his desire to bring change with his interest in finance.

“Hopefully this role shows you can be in finance and try to make the world a better place.”

— RYAN DEFFENBAUGH

han da ry. ity’s r to

ch’s ment optive

nue in a spihost

“

the dich Two rant

bars pen

ONTI

YOU CAN BE IN FINANCE AND TRY TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE”

LAUREN Jupiter, 37 Managing partner, AccelFoods

A

t her first job out of college, Lauren Jupiter covered food-andbeverage companies for investment bank UBS. “I really saw firsthand how slowly things moved at big companies,” she said.

She sought a faster pace at a venture capital firm investing in food. But she found a gap in the market: No one was investing in food companies that had a product and customers but needed help competing.

Jupiter partnered with Jordan Gaspar, who suggested applying the tech-sector incubator model to small food companies. They built a network of 200 investors, mentors and entrepreneurs to create AccelFoods. They raised their first fund, of $4 million, on the premise that giant consumer food companies wanted to buy innovative firms. The Campbell Soup Co., for example, bought Plum Organics in 2013. That showed startups they invested in had a clear exit.

Accel now has $105 million in assets under management in three funds and investments in 35 food companies in “better for you” categories. Jupiter said she has learned to balance business knowledge with human intelligence.

“It’s a different feeling when you’re sitting with someone who wasn’t hired for a role but who built their company from the ground up,” she said.

That made her the first pick of Justin Guilbert, a serial entrepreneur, when he was looking for an investor for his latest product, Good Fish, a snack made from salmon skin. “She has that energy that helps when you’re starting something new,” he said.

“

I REALLY SAW FIRSTHAND HOW SLOWLY THINGS MOVED AT BIG COMPANIES”

— CARA EISENPRESS MARCH 23, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 25

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40s SNAPSHOT

93

%

Portion who live in Manhattan or Brooklyn

JEREMY Parker, 34 CEO, Swag.com

T

JON Sherman, 34 Founder and CEO, Sticky’s Finger Joint

N EMILY Graham, 34 Partner, FleishmanHillard

E

mily Graham, a classically trained ballet dancer born in Louisiana and raised in Texas, arrived in New York City eight years ago, brimming with energy. Since then her clients and colleagues have reaped the benefits.

Graham, the only black female partner at communications strategy firm FleishmanHillard, is co-lead of financial and professional services in the Americas, working with financial institutions, law firms and other clients to create communications strategies in an increasingly complicated and connected world.

“It’s about authenticity, [advising] clients how to show up in a brand-new world where everything you say and do matters,” Graham said.

She cut her teeth in commu nications at Burston-Marsteller, where she worked on the Bank of America–Merrill Lynch merger and helped financial institutions weather the public distrust following the Great Recession.

“I was always the youngest— and the only black woman,” she said.

In 2017 Graham joined FleishmanHillard, where in addition to advising clients, she co-leads the firm’s global diversity and inclusion program. Her mandate: to define a strategy and a measurement system and implement it in 80 offices in 30 countries.

“My role is to make it a business imperative, not an HR project,” said Graham, adding that she has helped increase senior-level diversity hires by 15%.

As for her success, she credits her parents with raising her to believe she could do anything. “You have to be tenacious, focused, driven—and remember who you are,” she said.

— JUDY MESSINA

“

YOU HAVE TO BE TENACIOUS, FOCUSED, DRIVEN—AND REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE”

early a decade ago, Jon Sherman noticed restaurants were doing strong business by perfecting individual dishes such as meatballs and lobster rolls. He was working at Bridgewater Associates, a Connecticut hedge fund, when he and a friend thought there should be a restaurant that specializes in chicken fingers.

“The more I thought about it, the more I convinced myself it was a great idea, and I started going down the path of testing recipes,” he said.

A seasoned buttermilk marinade led Sherman to a chicken tender that surpassed the standard-issue children’s menu offering. So he signed a $6,000-a-month lease on West Eighth Street, thinking Sticky’s was ready. In 2012 it opened with a menu of chicken fingers loaded with sauces and toppings such as salted caramel.

“It went great and horrible,” he said. Customers and critics liked the food, but the lack of business acumen meant Sticky’s lost money.

Sherman then had to build a business from the bottom up. The menu shifted to feature fingers and fries with tons of sauces on the side, rather than focusing on the whimsical signature creations.

Sticky’s made $20 million in revenue in 2019. It has 11 stores, and two more will open this year. Sherman supervises 15 office employees and 150 restaurant workers.

“He really takes calculated risks,” said Leor Wolf, who oversees Sticky’s construction and finance.

“Very rarely is our high-level decision-making being done on the fly.”

he promotional items and corporate knickknacks known as swag are the only kinds of advertising people thank you for—before throwing them out a few minutes later.

Jeremy Parker’s idea is to make the type of swag people want to keep.

His firm, Swag.com, is a digital marketplace of all-cotton T-shirts, cork-bottomed coffee mugs, socks with logos you would wear more than twice, backpacks that don’t slide off the shoulders and much, much more branded stuff. Revenue doubled last year, to $7 million, and it should double again this year.

Parker thought he wanted to be a filmmaker until he started a business making college T-shirts. That got him thinking that shirts bearing corporate logos could be as cool as those for sports teams.

He and co-founder Josh Orbach launched Swag.com in early 2016 after haggling for the domain name with a squatter who wanted millions but settled for $200,000. They started cold-calling anyone who would answer the phone, traveled everywhere with suitcases full of samples and had doors slammed in their faces repeatedly.

To win a T-shirt contract from Facebook, he undercut every bidder. He then used that credibility to produce 5,000 T-shirts for one of WeWork’s infamous summer-camp retreats. Every label inside each T-shirt included the words “Swag.com.”

“We’ve never looked back,” Parker said.

— AARON ELSTEIN

“

WE'VE NEVER LOOKED BACK”

— CARA EISENPRESS

26 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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3/19/20 6:38 PM

T:10.875” S:10.25”

Congratulations to our very own

Sara Wechter.

Your commitment to diversity and equal representation has had a profound impact on both our organization and the industry. To Sara and the rest of this year’s nominees, congratulations on your achievements and thank you for continuing to pursue excellence every day.

T:14.5” S:14”

Sara Wechter Global Head of Human Resources

CN019634.indd 1

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BENJAMIN Witte, 32 Founder and CEO, Recess

W

“

hen Southern California native Ben Witte graduated with a degree in business and entrepreneurship from Boston University in 2010, the Silicon Valley scene was booming.

But Witte had other ideas in mind.

“My passions and strengths were more around consumer experience rather than building software for businesses,” he said.

A self-described stressed-out and anxious person, Witte shifted his entrepreneurial aspirations to cannabidiol in 2017.

CBD was starting to receive industry buzz, and Witte was eager to create a solution for people who shared his anxieties.

In October 2018 he launched Recess, a CBD-infused beverage company, under the slogan “Calm, Cool, Collected.”

In its first month, the company clocked 40 times its projected sales, Witte said, though Recess does not disclose its financials.

The company’s idea and product resonate strongly with customers, he said. They are drinking the beverages before they start their day, at the office, as a substitute for their afternoon coffee, before and after workouts, and even instead of alcohol.

Since its launch, Recess has grown from two employees to about 40 at its SoHo base. Its drinks, which come in flavors, such as blackberry chai and peach ginger, now appear in 4,000 retailers, primarily in the city and Los Angeles.

Witte plans to expand to other markets, such as Chicago and Miami, and grow beyond beverages to media, merchandise and apparel.

“CBD is the caffeine of the 21st century,” he said.

CBD IS THE CAFFEINE OF THE 21ST CENTURY”

— JENNIFER HENDERSON

LUVLEEN Sidhu, 34

Co-founder and CEO, BankMobile

I STAFFORD Sheehan, 31 Co-founder and chief technology officer, Air Co.

R

aised by a single mother in Tiverton, R.I., Stafford Sheehan knew he would probably have to go into debt to attend college.

So while he was in high school, he taught himself to write code, and he co-founded a software startup that helped companies reduce energy use.

That startup paid his Boston College tuition when he and his fellow founders sold it a couple of years later, establishing a pattern of launching successful businesses.

Stafford, a lifelong environmentalist, founded his second company, Catalytic Innovations, after he got his physical chemistry Ph.D. from Yale. There he learned to build a commercial lab, which shaped his most recent startup, Air Co., arguably the world’s most innovative vodka brand. Drawing on his artificial photosynthesis expertise, the two-year-old Bushwick startup is making vodka out of carbon dioxide and water—a first.

The spirit is the only high-profile consumer product to come from the new science of carbon capture and utilization, which climate experts consider crucial to fighting global warming. Each Air Co. bottle removes a pound of carbon from the atmosphere.

Sheehan and co-founder Gregory Constantine, a former Smirnoff marketer, are building a second Bushwick facility to expand distribution of the $60 bottles beyond high-end bars to liquor stores.

“When I was in grad school, I saw this concept, artificial photosynthesis, that had all this promise,” Sheehan said.

But it faced “a business barrier, just as much as it [did] a science barrier.” Air Co. is breaking down both.

“

THIS CONCEPT HAD PROMISE”

— MATTHEW FLAMM

n the crowded field of financial startups, Luvleen Sidhu has stood out far from the pack since she launched BankMobile, a financial institution used by 1.1 million college students in the U.S. Last year her five-yearold startup become the backbone for T-Mobile’s banking app. BankMobile generated $85 million in revenue in 2019 and became profitable in the second half of the year. It holds $540 million in deposits.

Few Silicon Valley–backed banking startups have broken through like this.

Sidhu doesn’t come from Silicon Valley, but from Reading, Pa. That’s where her father ran the local bank and, eventually, many others. Her parents wanted her to become a doctor; they were disappointed when she chose finance.

Lehman Brothers went bankrupt the first day she worked there, a sign mighty institutions perhaps weren’t as solid as they seemed.

After cutting her teeth in investment management, she urged her father to back her idea to start a bank that wins over customers at a young age and grows up with them.

BankMobile has succeeded in part because its fees are often much lower than those of most established banks. Sidhu promotes her brand on digital channels such as Instagram and at Ted-like talks, media approaches that tend to mystify the banking world.

Maybe one day her digital-native bank will be bought by a larger financial institution, as is the customary order of things.

But it feels more likely that one day she’ll be the one buying out her rivals.

— AARON ELSTEIN

28 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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40s SNAPSHOT

ALEX Pollak, 39

Number of honorees who work in technology

Founder and CEO, Paradocs Worldwide

MARIELLE Kress, 34

W

hen someone gets sick or injured at one of New York’s marquee events, someone from Alex Pollak’s team at Paradocs usually is there to help.

The company has supplied emergency-room doctors and paramedics to music festivals such as the Governors Ball as well as New York Fashion Week, movie shoots and parties. It also has contracts with Nassau Coliseum, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Webster Hall.

Pollak started volunteering as an EMT in high school; he was working on an ambulance that responded to the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.

“That made me want to stay in the medical field and not lose touch with it,” he said.

After graduating from Baruch College’s M.B.A. program in 2008, he worked for several years as a project manager for the EMS company TransCare while moonlighting as a paramedic on ambulances.

In 2011 Pollak started Paradocs after a cousin working on a men’s fashion show needed to find a paramedic. He began coordinating medical services for security companies. Paradocs landed its first major gig in 2014 with the Governors Ball on Randall’s Island. He hired 100 people to staff the event.

The company now has eight full-time employees, but it works with about 2,600 medical professionals during peak season. It generates about $4.8 million in annual revenue, Pollak said.

He has entertained offers to sell, but he loves what he does: “It’s kind of my dream job.”

“

Executive director, NYC Care

L

IT’S KIND OF MY DREAM JOB”

WILL Sealy, 33 Co-founder and CEO, Summer

T

one her

he student-debt problem is a business problem. So Will Sealy started a business to create a solution.

Sealy, whose company, Summer, helps graduates tackle their student loans, is familiar with the topic. Not only is he a debtor himself, but he worked on the issue with Sen. Elizabeth Warren during her time setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The William & Mary graduate with an M.B.A. from Yale became the resident expert in 2011, penning several of the fledgling agency’s reports to Congress on the issue.

His company, which raised $12 million in funding, has set up a system modeled after tax-return software such as TurboTax. It helps graduates navigate the repayment process, alerting them to any loan-forgiveness programs or alternative repayment structures available.

“We are essentially tax software to find out about these programs so that they can do an apples-toapples comparison,” he said. The company also has real-life advisers who help former students navigate the process.

In this tight employment market, Sealy said his solution could help with worker retention. He’s now partnering with businesses that pay for his services as part of their employee benefits package.

“Traditional benefit retirement savings plans are not meeting the needs of a generation that is actively paying off student debt,” he said. “Employers have to ask themselves: ‘Are my employees happy?

Is there financial strain or concern?

Is their financial situation forcing them to look elsewhere?’ ”

STEIN

— JANON FISHER

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ast year marked a homecoming for Marielle Kress. Her recent posts in Washington, D.C., included leading efforts to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Kress was senior adviser to the director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services in the Obama administration, and more recently she was director of federal advocacy at the American Academy of Pediatrics.

But her appointment to lead Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $100 million health care access program was a natural next step, she said.

“I am a born-and-raised New Yorker, so the thought of coming home and serving the city that gave me so much in my youth was incredibly attractive to me,” Kress said.

As executive director of NYC Care at New York City Health and Hospitals, Kress has already helped thousands of people gain quality health care. About 600,000 New Yorkers are uninsured.

More than 13,000 New Yorkers are enrolled in the program, which launched in the Bronx in August. Earlier this year the program rolled out in Brooklyn and Staten Island. It is expected to go citywide by the end of this year.

With NYC Care focused on enrolling members, regardless of their immigration status or ability to pay, her job is especially important now, Kress said.

“I have always felt a call to public service, and this position has really allowed me to do that in such a broad way,” she said.

— JENNIFER HENDERSON

“

I HAVE ALWAYS FELT A CALL TO PUBLIC SERVICE”

MARCH 23, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 29

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SSNY shall mail process to: Data Veritas, 133 2nd ave. #4, New York, NY, 10003. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of Healthinsura nce.com, LLC, fictitious name: Health insurance.com Insurance Services, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/20/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 10/29/1999.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: National Registered Agents, Inc., 28 Liberty St., NY, NY 10005. Address to be maintained in DE: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State, Division of Corporations, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of MSGS PUBLISHING, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/10/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/05/20. Princ. office of LLC: Two Pennsylvania Plaza, 19th Fl., NY, NY 10121. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of MSG SPHERE STUDIOS, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/07/19. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 10/30/19. Princ. office of LLC: Two Pennsylvania Plaza, NY, NY 10121. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/ o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John D. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Entertainment.

Notice of Qualification of PQOZ SPE JV, L.P. Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/11/20.

Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 11/29/18. Princ. office of LP: 75 Broadway, Ste. 230, San Francisco, CA 94111. Duration of LP is Perpetual. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the Partnership at the princ. office of the LP. Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. DE addr. of LP: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP filed with Secy. of State, DE, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of SUPERMASSIVE BEVERAGE COMPANY, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/ 20/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/ 19/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal - Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION OF O3 Partners LLC. App. for Auth. filed with the Sec’y of State of NY (SSNY) on 2 /11/20. Office location: New York County. LLC formed in DE on 10/ 25/18. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him/her to 787 11th Ave, 6th Floor, NY, NY 10019. The principal business address of the LLC is 787 11th Ave, 6th Fl, NY, NY 10019. DE address of LLC: 3616 Kirkwood Hwy, Ste A #1070, Wilmington, DE 19808.

Certificate of LLC filed with Sec’y of State of DE located at 401 Federal St #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION of STOCHASTICO LLC. Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 12/9/19. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 1 1/12/19. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o LEGALINC CORPORATE SERVICES INC, 1967 WEHRLE DRIVE SUITE 1-086, BUFFALO, NY 14221.

DE addr. of LLC: 651 N BROAD ST SUITE 206, MIDDLETOWN, DE 19709. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of General Delivery Consulting LLC. Arts or Org filed with Secy. of State (SSNY) ON 12/ 16/19. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to 2082 8th Ave, #4C, New York, NY 10026.

Purpose: any lawful act.

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF 62 Lawlor Street LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/11/2020. Office location: NEW YORK County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. The Post Office address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him/her is: 46 North Clover Drive, Great Neck, NY 11021. R/A: Zachary Goldman, 46 North Clover Drive, Great Neck, NY 11021.

The principal business address of the LLC is: 46 North Clover Drive, Great Neck, NY 11021. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of Caithness LI Energy Storage LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/27/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/16/20. Princ. office of LLC: c/o Caithness Services LLC, 565 Fifth Ave., 29th Fl., NY, NY 10017. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, Attn: Authorized Officer, 401 Federal St., Ste. 2, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Investments in energy projects.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of Logic Pallet, LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 2/13/2020.

Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to 80 Maiden Ln, Ste 1004, New York, NY 10038.

ELIZABETH ADLER TRTO NUTRITION, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 02/20/2020. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Elizabeth Adler, 325 North End Avenue, Apt. 16C, NY, NY 10282. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Qualification of MATERIAL LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/28/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/18/18. Princ. office of LLC: 54 W. 21st St., #607, NY, NY 10010. NYS fictitious name: MATERIAL VENTURES LLC. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808-1674. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of STREET SPOT ME, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 0 3/02/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 02/12/20. Princ. office of LLC: 333 Seventh Ave., NY, NY 10001. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with Jeffrey W. Bullock, Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Software application development.

19 ROBERTSON DRIVE LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 01/ 28/2020. Office loc: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 1185 Park Avenue, Apt. 16F, NY, NY 10128. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

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Notice of Qualification of VESTA ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 03/02/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 10/16/19. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c /o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543.

DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., 401 Federal St., Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Advertising Section

CLASSIFIEDS To place a classified ad, Call 212-210-0189 or Email: jbarbieri@crainsnewyork.com

30 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | MARCH 23, 2020

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CLASSIFIEDS

To place a classified ad, Call 212-210-0189 or Email: jbarbieri@crainsnewyork.com PUBLIC & LEGAL NOTICES

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF D.D. Encore Laundromat LLC. Articles of Org. filed with Sec. of State of N.Y. on 2/ 12/2020. Office location: New York County. SSNY desig. as agent for service of process. SSNY shall mail process to: 324 East 73rd Street New York, NY 10021. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of limited liability company (LLC). Name: BOOKED

BY EJ, LLC. Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 01/10/2020. Office location: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to: ERIC DE’MON JONES 115 W. 128th ST., APT. 4A, NEW YORK, NY 10027.

Purpose: consulting services.

Notice of Formation of Limited Liability Company (LLC). NAME: WLC TOP LLC - Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 10/03/2018. Office location: New York County. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to: The LLC, 98 E BROADWAY STE 309, NEW YORK, NY 10002. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

360 BRANCH RESTORATION SERVICES LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 02/05/2020. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 299 Hackensack Street, East Rutherford, NJ 07073. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Formation of Wrublin Holdings LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/12/20.

Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: the Company, 134 West 25th St., 5th Fl., NY, NY 10001. Purpose: any lawful activities.

SCHACHTER SALES LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 01/10/20.

Latest date to dissolve: 12/ 31/2119. Office: New York County.

SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, c/o Russell Schachter, 200 West 54th Street, #6GH, New York, NY 10019. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

STANDARD OIL CAPITAL GROUP LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 01/29/2020. Office loc: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 352 Seventh Ave., Ste 303, NY, NY 10001. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

NOTICE OF FORMATION Hometown Equity Mortgage, LLC. Application for Authority filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on January 28, 2020. Office location: NEW YORK County. LLC formed in Missouri on September 4, 2001. SSNY has been designated as an agent upon whom process against it may be served. The Post Office address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him/her is: 28 Liberty Street, New York, NY 10005. The principal business address of the LLC is: 1 Mid Rivers Mall Drive, Suite 130, St. Peters, MO 63376. Missouri address of LLC is: 1 Mid Rivers Mall Drive, Suite 130, St. Peters, MO 63376.

Certificate of LLC filed with Secretary of State of Missouri located at: 600 W. Main Street, Room 322, Jefferson City, MO 65102. Purpose: any lawful act or activity

Notice of formation of RENHUB GROUP, LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 2/ 26/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to: 260 W. 54th St., NY, NY 10019 Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of DONATELLO NA LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 02/28/20.

Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Tarter Krinsky & Drogin LLP, Attn: Gina Piazza, Esq., 1350 Broadway, 11th Fl., NY, NY 10018. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of IEX CLOUD SERVICES LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 0 2/20/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 08/ 15/18. Princ. office of LLC: 3 World Trade Center, 58th Fl., NY, NY 10007. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808-1674. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of the State of DE, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Operation of a business which provides data products and services, including an API.

Notice of Formation of HANDSTANDS, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 01/30/20. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 160 W 66th St., Apt. 22D, NY, NY 10036. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

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MARCH 23, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 31

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YOUR BIG NEWS IN CRAIN’S!

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PEOPLE ON THE VE MOVE O M E TH N O E PL O PE Advertising Section

ARCHITECTURE

AXT Company Salma Starlgn hasIte volo officte mpossitatint volut fugiaec tibus, sumqui temposa ndianti onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia m volorehendam aut molorate nem cus net aperibus dicta sed ligenda nditis endantiae quos doluptur sitatur riatum eproviduste volende verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, i auda ommolup tatur? Quiaeper quamus et pa cus in repudionem aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit r optatquatem expla doluptatu facepro ut autatqui dolori ARCHITECTURE

Davis Design

ACCOUNTING

ARCHITECTURE

TAX Planning Group

AXT Company

CTION CONSTRU Jane Pool hasIte volo Salma Starlgn hasIte officte mpossitatint volo officte volut fugiaec tibus, mpossitatint volut sumqui temposa fugiaec tibus, sumqui Salma Starlgn ndianti temposa ndianti Poolonserrumende Jane se et doles doles cus, onserrumende se et quaeceres erro quia doles doles cus, volorehendam aut moloratem quaeceres erro quia cus net aperibus dicta nem volorehendam aut moloratem ligenda nditis endantiaesed cus net aperibus dicta nem quos doluptur sitatur ligenda nditis endantiaesed eproviduste volende riatum quos doluptur sitatur verum expel ipicatenis eproviduste volende riatum doluptatiunt volupta quam, verum expel ipicatenis ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda doluptatiunt volupta quam, pa cus in repudionem quamus et ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda aut velluptam videlic ieniet pa cus in repudionem quamus et hariam vero cus, audit aut velluptam videlic ieniet optatquatem expla doluptatur hariam vero cus, audit autatqui dolori ut facepro optatquatem expla

ACCOUNTING

AXTCO.

BEST BUILD

Salma Starlgn hasIte volo officte mpossitatint volut m Thompso Paula fugiaec tibus, sumqui temposa ndianti onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit optatquatem expla doluptatur autatqui dolori ut facepro

INSURANCE

LEGAL Russel Agency

Paula Thompsom hasIte volo officte mpossitatint Smith volut John fugiaec tibus, sumqui temposa ndianti onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit optatquatem expla doluptatur autatqui dolori ut facepro

LEGAL

JOHNSON LLP John Smith hasIte volo officte mpossitatint volut fugiaec tibus, sumqui temposa ndianti onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit optatquatem expla doluptatur autatqui dolori ut facepro

ARCHITECTURE

ACCOUNTING

INSURANCE

LAW

LEGAL

Davis Design

Davis Inc.

SMITH GROUP

Moris Law LEGAL

George Group

Franki Henry hasIte TING ACCOUN volo officte mpossitatint volut fugiaec tibus, sumqui temposa ndianti Paul Jones onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit

INSURAN Paul JonesCEhasIte volo officte mpossitatint volut fugiaec tibus, Don James sumqui temposa ndianti onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit optatquatem expla doluptatur autatqui dolori ut facepro

Don James hasIte volo officte mpossitatint volut Time fugiaec Shela tibus, sumqui temposa ndianti onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit optatquatem expla doluptatur autatqui dolori ut facepro

Shela Time hasIte volo officte mpossitatint Peter Yan volut fugiaec tibus, sumqui temposa ndianti onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam MORIS vero cus, LAW audit

Peter Yan hasIte volo officte mpossitatint volut fugiaec tibus, sumqui temposa ndianti onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit optatquatem expla doluptatur autatqui dolori ut facepro

CONSTRUCTION

INSURANCE

LEGAL

LEGAL

Ground Up

Marble Agency

CallaLEGAL LLP

Singletree LLP

CE JennINSURAN Stone hasIte volo officte mpossitatint volut fugiaec tibus, sumqui Bond Tinandianti temposa onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit optatquatem expla doluptatur autatqui dolori ut facepro

Tina Bond hasIte volo officte mpossitatint volut fugiaec tibus, Jones Bella sumqui temposa ndianti onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit optatquatem expla doluptatur autatqui dolori ut facepro

Bella Jones hasIte volo officte mpossitatint volut Michael Banks fugiaec tibus, sumqui temposa ndianti onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit optatquatem expla doluptatur autatqui dolori ut facepro

Michael Banks hasIte volo officte mpossitatint volut fugiaec tibus, sumqui temposa ndianti onserrumende se et doles doles cus, quaeceres erro quia volorehendam aut moloratem cus net aperibus dicta nem ligenda nditis endantiaesed quos doluptur sitatur eproviduste volende riatum verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda pa cus in repudionem quamus et aut velluptam videlic ieniet hariam vero cus, audit optatquatem expla doluptatur autatqui dolori ut facepro

Frank Henry hasIte volo officte mpossitatint volut fugiaec tibus, sumqui temposa ndianti doles onserrumende se et doles cus, quaeceres erro quia m volorehendam aut molorate nem cus net aperibus dicta sed ligenda nditis endantiae quos doluptur sitatur riatum eproviduste volende verum expel ipicatenis doluptatiunt volupta quam, i auda ommolup tatur? Quiaeper quamus et pa cus in repudionem aut velluptam videlic ieniet ACCOUNTING hariam vero cus, audit r optatquatem expla doluptatu facepro ut Jon & Jon Co. autatqui dolori

Carol Strong hasIte voloCONSTRU officte CTION ACCOUNTING mpossitatint volut fugiaec tibus, Jon & Jon Co. sumqui temposa Stone Jenn ndianti onserrumende se et Carol Strong hasIte doles doles cus, quaeceres erro volo officte quia volorehendam aut mpossitatint volut moloratem cus net aperibus fugiaec tibus, dicta nem ligenda nditis sumqui temposa endantiaesed quos doluptur se et ende onserrum ndianti s erro sitatur eproviduste volende doles doles cus, quaecere riatum verum expel ipicatenis quia volorehendam aut doluptatiunt volupta quam, moloratem cus net aperibus ommolup tatur? Quiaeperi auda dicta nem ligenda nditis pa cus in repudionem quamus et endantiaesed quos doluptur aut velluptam videlic ieniet sitatur eproviduste volende hariam vero cus, audit riatum verum expel ipicatenis optatquatem expla doluptatur quam, volupta unt doluptati autatqui dolori ut facepro i auda ommolup tatur? Quiaeper quamus et pa cus in repudionem aut velluptam videlic ieniet audit cus, vero hariam r optatquatem expla doluptatu autatqui dolori ut facepro

CN019627.indd 1

CONSTRUCTION

INSURANCE

LAW

LEGAL

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