Crain's New York Business

ASKED & ANSWERED Keeping union workers employed during the pandemic PAGE 14

CRAINSNEWYORK.COM

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AUGUST 10, 2020

TEST OF TIME Butterfield Market keeps surviving economic slowdowns PAGE 3

FINANCE

RAIDING THE REGISTER

Fairway executives take bankruptcy bonuses while essential workers struggle

BY AARON ELSTEIN

F

ROBERT W. NEWELL JR. UFCW Local 1500 president at Fairway Westbury property

BUCK ENNIS

or the past three years, Jamaine Thomas has commuted by train and bus one hour each way from his apartment in the Bronx to his job at the Fairway Market in Harlem. Even through New York’s darkest days of the Covid19 pandemic, Thomas sliced provolone and Boar’s Head meats behind the deli counter and made pizzas, salads and sandwiches for the café—all for $16 per hour. That’s about $33,000 per year, plus benefits.

But that changed on July 18, when Thomas arrived at work to learn he had lost his See BANKRUPT on page 52

EDUCATION

Colleges take different paths to reopening Most schools will offer a blend of online and in-person instruction

BY BRIAN PASCUS

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s hundreds of thousands of students gear up to return to campuses across New York City in the next few weeks, there are still questions as to how universities

NEWSPAPER

VOL. 36, NO. 27

are preparing to welcome back students in a world with Covid-19.

“This the biggest challenge I or any president of the CUNY system has faced in living memory,” said Vincent Boudreau, president of the City College of New York.

© 2020 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC.

since the late 1970s.

“All of higher education is wrestling with the big questions,” said the Rev. Joseph McShane, president of Fordham University.

See COLLEGE on page 4

GOTHAM GIGS

ARTS WORLD INSIDER PUTS HER CONTACT LIST TO WORK PAGE 55

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Boudreau said the twin challenges his institution and others face is keeping students and faculty safe while also executing their mission to provide a quality education, all while facing what he calls the biggest budget crisis the city and the state have encountered

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8/7/20 5:55 PM

CORONAVIRUS ALERT

Black business ownership plummets during pandemic

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he Covid-19 pandemic has devastated Black-owned business in New York, which now lags Texas, Georgia and Florida in the number of companies run by members of the minority group, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York says.

Black business ownership in the state, which in February was the highest in the country at 98,600 owners, fell 70% by June, according to a Fed report.

It’s part of a broader body of evidence that shows the pandemic, which ravaged New York during the spring, had deeply unequal effects across racial groups. A Crain’s report last month found that the city severely under-contracted with minority-owned firms for its

BUCK ENNIS

BY GWEN EVERETT

The Fed report adds to that picture.

“This brief shows the disturbing relationship between high geographic incidence of Covid-19 and the economic health of Blackowned businesses,” said Claire Kramer Mills, assistant vice president at the New York Fed. “These firms had a weaker financial cushion, weaker bank relationships and preexisting funding gaps prior to the pandemic. Covid-19 has exacerbated these issues.”

The Paycheck Protection Program, the massive small-business bailout initiative that the federal government administered through banks, benefited firms with preexisting banking relationships, and it had limited reach, according to the bank report.

“THESE FIRMS HAD A WEAKER FINANCIAL CUSHION PRIOR TO THE PANDEMIC” Covid-19 orders, and the same month, a comptroller survey of 500 minority- and women-owned firms found 85% didn’t think they would survive the next six months.

WEBCAST CALLOUT

NY STATE COMPTROLLER OFFICE

CRAIN’S BUSINESS FORUM: COMPTROLLER THOMAS P. DINAPOLI DISCUSSES THE STATE’S FINANCIAL CONDITION As New York faces the worst financial crisis since the Great Recession and double-digit unemployment, business owners need to know what their government can do to help them survive. Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli will discuss the state’s financial condition and what it will take to weather the Covid-19-related downturn.

Time: 4 to 5 p.m.

CrainsNewYork.com/ AugBusinessForum

Structural questions The limited reach of the PPP initiative raises structural questions about how well banks serve communities of color, an issue that becomes more pressing when those banks are being used to dole out relief, Mills said.

States with slow reopening procedures, such as New York, saw a continuous decline in Black business ownership, the report found, while those that reopened quickly saw gains. Florida, for example, which had 75,859 Black business owners before the pandemic, had more than 100,000 by June.

But the gains states that reopened early saw in Black-business ownership are, for many of them, already wavering or reversing, the report said, because Covid-19 cases are yet again on the rise. ■

Covid-19 rent-relief program ends

BY EDDIE SMALL

AUG. 26

Just 7% of firms in the Bronx received PPP loans and 11.3% of firms in Queens, the report found.

It noted that those counties are among the top 30 in the country with the most Black business ownership. But Manhattan, among the top 10 counties in the country with the most Black-owned firms, fared better: 19.6% of companies won PPP loans, against a national estimate of 17.7%.

RENTERS ARE OUT of time to apply for the state’s Covid-19 Rent Relief Program, despite the protestations of advocacy groups.

The program from the Division of Homes and Community Renewal launched July 16 and, before the agency extended it for a week, was to have expired July 30. Although there was speculation that the agency might extend it again, the application period has officially closed.

More than 90,000 applications have been completed through the program, HCR said. The agency will now start reviewing them, prioritizing the households with the greatest economic need.

State Sen. Brian Kavanagh had called for the program to continue and said the additional week was a good way to balance giving people more time to apply and giving HCR a chance to start processing the applications.

“Obviously, some people would have benefited from more time, but this isn’t our last effort to make sure

people have rental assistance,” he said. “At this point, we’re going to shift our focus to make sure they process these applications rapidly.”

The program gives renters a onetime subsidy for as much as four months of financial assistance. To take part in the program, tenants have to earn less than 80% of the area’s median income, spend more than 30% of their monthly income on rent and have lost money because of the pandemic.

Advocacy groups had called for the state to extend the program until Aug. 28 in response to complaints about language and technology issues that they said they had heard from renters. They remain frustrated with HCR’s decision to end the application process.

“Thousands of tenants are still confronted with the possibility of being homeless as HCR decides to shut down the Rent Relief Program,” said Anita Long, a leader with Community Action for Safe Apartments.

She described the program as “deliberately underfunded from the beginning.” ■

Capsule adds partner in fast-changing telehealth landscape

BY JONATHAN LAMANTIA

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ew York digital pharmacy Capsule has reached a deal with telehealth company Hims & Hers to become the brand’s provider of free same-day medication delivery.

The arrangement gives Capsule a new way to add customers after expanding its delivery services to Westchester County, New Jersey, Boston, Chicago and Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Hims & Hers, a San Francisco company that enables virtual doctor visits and medication delivery, adds an option for faster delivery as it tries to stand out in a crowded field.

Hilary Coles, co-founder of Hims & Hers, said the partnership will allow customers to cut down delivery times without paying extra. The company had started by shipping medication to treat erectile dysfunction and birth control but has expanded into areas such as dermatology, primary care and mental health.

“There are times where it’s important to have as quick a response as possible in whatever it is you’re solving, whether that’s an itchy rash or painful UTI,” Coles said.

“We’re trying to alleviate people congregating in waiting rooms and standing in line in pharmacies.”

Crowded field A cadre of companies established in recent years to provide virtual care have seen their fortunes rise as patients turned to telehealth during the pandemic.

New York’s Teladoc, which saw its stock price triple from January to August, recently acquired Livongo to give its telehealth offering an improved chronic-care focus. Telehealth company Ro raised $200 million last month as it makes its own move into the ongoing treat-

ment of disease.

Hims & Hers is reportedly seeking to go public through a special purpose acquisition company, according to Reuters. Coles declined to comment on the prospects of an IPO. Capsule is trying to get more patients filling prescriptions online to pick its pharmacy through partnerships with the insurer Oscar and now Hims. Oscar itself said it would offer members the option to get all their primary care virtually next year.

“We’re able to really seamlessly plug in to a variety of providers— whether that’s insurers, other telemedicine providers or health systems,” said Eric Kinariwala, Capsule’s founder and CEO. “People are realizing the value of making sure that people get to take their medications.”

Investors are betting that patients will continue digitally seeing physicians and ordering medications even when they feel safe to go into a doctor’s office or pharmacy.

There are some signs that patients headed back to physician offices when it was possible. Ambulatory care visits were down 11% in midJune from the previous year compared to being down nearly 60% in late March, according to an analysis by the Commonwealth Fund.

Skeptics of telehealth worry that the quality of care is compromised if patients don’t forge longer, more personal relationships with their health care providers.

Coles said Teladoc’s deal is reflective of unprecedented demand for telehealth—from both patients and investors.

Consumers “have been given scraps and told it’s a buffet when it comes to their health care experience,” Coles said. “They’re seeing now that they actually can and should be in control.” ■

Vol. 36, No. 27, August 10, 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.

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8/7/20 5:50 PM

CORONAVIRUS ALERT

Knotel defaults on back rent in Midtown

BY NATALIE SACHMECHI

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BUTTERFIELD MARKET

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FOOD & BEVERAGE

SURVIVING THE TEST OF TIME

Since 1915, Butterfield Market has found ways to grow—and thrive—despite catastrophes

BY SUZANNAH CAVANAUGH

B

utterfield Market is no stranger to economic fluctuations.

Open for 105 years and owned by the Obsatz family for 46 of them, the Upper East Side grocer weathered both the Spanish flu and the Great Depression by operating as a food-delivery service. To meet a shift in customer needs in the early ’90s, Butterfield dropped delivery and rebranded as a “fancy food store.” In October 2008, on the eve of the Great Recession, co-owner Joelle Obsatz decided to expand the company with a new kitchen and catering facility.

“It wasn’t the best timing,” Obsatz said. “We always decide to grow when See MARKET on page 4

he head of Brooks Brothers is trying to stitch up $3 million in back rent from Knotel after the flexible-workspace company stopped paying on a Midtown space in March, according to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.

CEO Claudio del Vecchio, who helms the pinstriped empire, inherited Knotel’s lease when he purchased the building at 11 E. 44th St. from Aion Partners for $106 million in January 2019. The flex-office company occupies portions of four floors in the building, costing about $125,000 per month, according to the complaint.

In May del Vecchio sent Knotel a notice of default. A month later he terminated the lease and said the space would be considered unoccupied unless Knotel responded by July 31, said Joshua Epstein, del Vecchio’s lawyer.

So far the office startup hasn’t responded, Epstein said.

The clothing CEO is asking for $625,000 in back rent, $2.4 million in construction it had done on the space and attorneys’ fees, according to the complaint.

Vacancy woes Even before the pandemic forced all of its city locations to shutter, Knotel had been struggling with high vacancy rates— about 260,000 square feet in November 2019, Crain’s reported.

Today the company has more than 481,000 square feet of unoccupied space, its listings show—nearly a quarter of its entire city portfolio.

The coworking company laid off half of its global workforce in March, but it is not considering bankruptcy, a spokeswoman said.

Instead, it is focusing on closing its next capital raise.

Brooks Brothers hasn’t been faring much better. After announcing it would begin bankruptcy proceedings in June, it confirmed it had entered into an agreement with a joint venture between Simon Property Group and Authentic Brands to sell the company for $305 million.

Simon and Authentic Brands partnered up with Brookfield Properties earlier this year to purchase Forever 21 for $81 million.

And Brooks Brothers has its own rent issues. The retailer was sued in federal court in May by its landlord at 901 Broadway, which claimed the clothier owes about $100,000 in back rent. ■ AUGUST 10, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 3

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8/7/20 11:02 AM

FROM PAGE 1

“We are listening to what the state is saying about how we have to operate.”

The state has issued specific guidelines for all schools to follow.

These include repeated health checks and screenings of students and faculty, limited gatherings in enclosed spaces, face-covered and socially distanced in-person instruction, and contact-tracing systems to isolate positive cases.

But each school has its own protocol and systems for their students and staff. And each school is experiencing its own challenges as it reopens this fall. Here’s a look at five of the largest schools in the city.

New York University NYU will be reconvening on its Greenwich Village campus Aug. 31.

Classes will be conducted in three ways: remote learning, in-person and a blended version of both.

NYU is paying particular attention to make sure its teachers are protected, as the Covid-19 virus has proved especially deadly for people 65 and older.

“First of all, there is a class of professors who are over 65 that according to CDC guidelines are more vulnerable, so they automatically go in Zoom classes only,” said Nicholas Economides, professor of economics at the NYU Stern School of Business. “Then other professors have vulnerabilities, disease or someone in their family who is vulnerable to get sick, and they automatically get into Zoom classes.”

Economides expects to teach his courses on Zoom, as there are only a limited number of classrooms that can physically accommodate socially distanced learning, and

MARKET FROM PAGE 3

something happens to the

economy.”

When Covid-19 began shuttering storefronts in mid-March, Obsatz— who runs Butterfield with her brother, Evan, and father, Alan— was gearing up to open a second market in April. Instead, the team was forced to close Butterfield’s four satellite cafés and all but suspend catering.

“We had to change how we do business overnight to survive,” Obsatz said. “But we're doing it.”

To stay afloat, Obsatz looked to Butterfield’s original business model, which had relied on phone orders for delivery to clients with a house account. She advertised the option, and within two weeks to-go orders surged from 5% to 60% of sales.

even this would force a majority of students to take turns as to who comes in.

“Last I heard, the classrooms we have in the business school seat 65 students, so the social distancing would imply 18 students at the same time,” said Economides. “I don’t expect this type of special regimen to last for the whole year. I expect it only to last in the fall.”

Columbia University In a letter to faculty and students July 7, Columbia President Lee Bollinger said faculty will be able to choose whether to teach in person, and the school seeks to create “maximum flexibility in teaching and scholarship” for students and staff when classes fully resume on the Upper West Side campus Sept. 8.

But some graduate students who teach are worried. “It’s hard to know if the administration will force our hands because they have been sending out suggestions that we are to teach in person,” said Johanna King-Slutzky, a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department.

Other graduate students have faith in the school to keep their safety in mind, as Columbia has already instituted a self-check-up system to keep track of students’ Covid-19 results and help the university manage a test-and-trace system.

“The school is doing everything they can to give us all available information about their plans and what is going on,” said Lee Sanderlin, a Stabile Fellow at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

Others at the school, especially undergraduates, are just looking forward to returning to normal, or whatever a normal Covid-19-era education can feel like.

“I’m kind of excited to start school again,” said Gloria Hui, a fled her staff into new packaging positions to retain employees but couldn’t avoid furloughs entirely.

Butterfield’s catering business was decimated with offices closed and events canceled because of the stay-at-home mandate; orders dropped by 95%. The 200 meals the team boxed on Butterfield’s busiest days couldn’t compare to the 10,000 it could push out for a day’s catering order prepandemic.

No time for sickness An added challenge was organizing the operational overhaul from home.

On March 14, two days before Mayor Bill de Blasio mandated the closure of bars and restaurants, Obsatz’s 5-year-old daughter came down with a fever. By the following morning, Obsatz had a temperature too.

“It was crazy: I had Covid and didn't know I had Covid,” recalled Obsatz.

The business owner worked from home for two and a half weeks as she recuperated. When she returned to Butterfield, she camped out in the catering office to keep herself away from the kitchen, where orders are packaged.

She instituted precautionary measures for her staff, including

“WE HAD TO CHANGE HOW WE DO BUSINESS OVERNIGHT, BUT WE’RE DOING IT” She made the markets’ grab-andgo options and prepackaged catering meals available for delivery and repurposed the company’s catering fleet to transport orders. She shuf-

rising sophomore at Columbia College studying music. “I’ve been stuck home for too long.”

put a tremendous emphasis on the education of the whole person.”

Fordham University

The CUNY system comprises 25 institutions across the five boroughs that range from senior colleges and graduate schools to community colleges and research programs. At the City College of New York, CUNY’s primary campus, on 138th Street and Convent Avenue in Harlem, 94% of classes will be online this semester.

“We don’t have a large residential population; most of our students are commuters,” Boudreau told Crain’s. “We have students that depend on public transportation, so we are being very cautious of who we bring back and how we do it in a way that is safe.”

Boudreau conceded that academic testing for students who are mainly taking classes online will present a challenge that is still being worked out.

“That’s a little bit of a puzzle, and it’s one we really need to solve, and it’s a difficult one,” he said. “Faculty members are very concerned with academic integrity.”

The university looked at proctoring tests online, Boudreau said, but there were legal liability issues he did not want to involve students in.

Some tests and exams will shift toward essays and long-form, openbook formats that will ensure the students learn the material and write detailed, thoughtful answers.

Other concentrations, such as math and engineering, will have timed online tests.

“There are ways of randomizing tests so that no student gets the same exam and making sure there is a tight window for beginning and ending a test,” Boudreau said.

Despite moving the curriculum online, Boudreau said, the City Col-

Up in the Bronx, Fordham opens its doors to students Aug. 26. As the city’s oldest Jesuit university and the third-oldest university in New York state, Fordham is facing arguably its toughest challenge since its founding in 1841.

“The big concern all colleges have is we have to re-engineer the campus to create an environment for students that is safe,” McShane said, “and how we can ensure social distancing so we can do our work in a way that is responsible.”

To this end, Fordham has enacted a system that will train faculty and staff on how to wear personal protective equipment and keep classrooms clean, promote softskills training in psychological safety and mental health wellness, and partner with the Fordham IT Department so teachers and staff are comfortable working remotely.

“We’re listening carefully, and we are adapting, and the provost and the faculty are walking through this very, very carefully,” McShane said.

Ultimately, the university will aim to allow faculty to decide the best way to teach courses that maintains a rich academic environment while ensuring lower-density classrooms. This will include faculty meeting students outside of their offices in larger spaces and the transformation of non-classroom facilities like gyms into classrooms that can ensure the free and safe exchange of ideas.

“We’re doing everything we can to preserve the values that we have and the particular way we educate students in a new world,” McShane said. “Jesuit education has always

City University of New York

lege of New York Board of Trustees is considering a $200 increase in tuition, though no decision has been made. He said 80% of City College’s budget is salaries for faculty and staff. And unlike larger institutions that have prestigious football and basketball programs, the students at City College are there for an education, not the amenities.

“The expenses attached to him or her getting an education, most of those expenses are baked in, and the college simply can’t go forward if they were to contemplate discounting tuition,” he said.

St. John’s University Out in Queens, St. John’s University is taking an approach similar to that of the other schools when classes begin Aug. 24. There will be hybrid learning, routinely clean surfaces and socially distanced learning and living arrangements.

The university plans for 60% of its classes to be remote or hybrid learning, while 40% of classes will be an in-person, on-campus experience, said Brian Browne, executive director of university relations.

“Some of them are based on the curriculum—labs, art classes, some that require more of an in-person presence—and for the classes going on in-person, the classrooms have been reconfigured,” he said.

Browne said each of the programs at St. John’s will offer differing tuition fees, and some students may see as much as a 3% rise this year.

He said the university is changing its calendar and will offer no days off until Thanksgiving except Election Day on Nov. 3. No students will return to campus after Thanksgiving, and the rest of the semester will be done online.

“If we have to pivot, then we are prepared to pivot,” Browne said. ■

FOCAL POINTS NAME Butterfield Market LOCATIONS 1114 Lexington Ave.; 1150 Madison Ave. (full grand opening in September) CAFÉS 200 Lexington Ave.; 1102 Lexington Ave.; 130 E. 80th St.; 346 E. 92nd St. EMPLOYEES 75 OWNER Joelle, Evan and Alan Obsatz 2019 REVENUE FOR THE MARKET $9 million 2019 REVENUE FROM CATERING $4 million

BUTTERFIELD MARKET

COLLEGE

2019 REVENUE FROM HOME DELIVERY $420,000 TWO-YEAR REVENUE GROWTH 12% (excluding web sales) WEBSITE butterfieldnyc.com

mandatory mask wearing, temperature checks, the cleaning of surfaces every 30 minutes and social distancing. She also had employees trained on the signs of Covid-19.

Her time cooped up with the illness gave Obsatz the idea to organize meal delivery for the city’s hospital workers. She created the Feed Our Heroes program and raised $375,000 to deliver 32,500 meals to hospital support staff.

Customer comeback The Upper East Side market has seen an uptick in patronage since the city’s June 8 reopening. During the height of the pandemic, foot

traffic brought in 200 customers a day. In the past two weeks, daily walk-ins have ranged between 500 and 850 patrons.

Casper Caldarola, a customer of 20 years, took a break from Butterfield during the shutdown, afraid of the risk of contracting the disease from prepackaged foods. Now that case numbers are down and the city is well into its phased reopening, Caldarola has taken advantage of Butterfield’s delivery services.

She is not sure when she’ll feel comfortable resuming her regular shopping habits, but she admits Butterfield’s famed frozen yogurt window is still a draw for her and her son. “I’ll probably stop in for

something soon,” she said.

The express window for Butterfield’s newest market, at 1150 Madison Ave., is now operating. The location will open with reduced capacity in September.

She said business won’t be back to normal until her customer base returns. Half of her clients fled to the Hamptons in March. To meet their needs, she extended delivery service to Suffolk County twice a week.

Obsatz is optimistic that if schools reopen come fall, she’ll see those customers return to their Upper East Side homes and their old shopping habits.

“We just need people to come back to the city,” she said. ■

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8/7/20 4:40 PM

CORONAVIRUS ALERT

OATH keeps its word through the pandemic

BY BRIAN PASCUS

O

ne of the least understood but most important city agencies is making changes while under the guidance of a new leader.

Last month Crain’s held a business forum with Joni Kletter, commissioner of the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, otherwise known as OATH, the central independent adKLETTER ministrative law court in New York City. Kletter is a relative newcomer to the post, taking the helm March 13 and steering it through the Covid-19 outbreak.

“Amazingly we’ve stayed fully operational through this time,” she said, speaking of the agency’s shift to phone or video hearings and trials. “I’m just so proud of the OATH team for keeping us fully operational during this time. Some municipal courts have completely shut down.”

Virtual court The agency adjudicates all citywide summonses, ranging from restaurant inspection summonses to sanitation citations. It alsohandles accusations of city employees side-stepping administrative rules.

As the pandemic has reshaped

within the agency is fixing the default rate, which stands at 35% of all summonses.

Along with the post-hearing failure to collect, that number jumps even higher, to nearly 50%. Of all the summonses that pass through OATH, Kletter said sanitation violations top the list.

“There are 800,000 summonses and over half of these are for sanitation,” she said.

But because the Sanitation Department doesn’t show for the hearings, most of them are thrown out, she said.

Generally, the transition to virtual hearings have helped New Yorkers by saving them travel time, Kletter said.

“I’ve never imagined we’d be in this situation, but this is where we are, this is our new reality,” she said. ■

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“WE ARE AN ADJUDICATING BODY THAT PROVIDES IMPARTIAL HEARINGS” public and private life, Kletter said OATH has needed to reshape its own operations. To that end the agency has used a virtual court-call platform that has allowed it to record every hearing and conduct hearings remotely.

“We’ve conducted over 17,000 hearings since mid-March,” she said. “We’ve also conducted 5,000 remote help sessions assisting respondents prehearing and posthearing.”

Fine and dandy During the Crain’s conference, Kletter revealed that the revenue OATH collected from fines last year topped $175 million, and that this year OATH has already collected $150 million.

“We don’t see ourselves as a revenue-generating agency. We are an adjudicating body that provides impartial hearings,” she said.

But Kletter noted that one of the areas she is working hardest at

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8/7/20 3:42 PM

IN THE MARKETS

These investments ask you to write a blank check Wall Street pros are pouring billions into companies they know nothing about

I

BILL ACKMAN RAISED $4 BILLION, POSSIBLY TO ACQUIRE A UNICORN

Last month one of four SPACs promoted by former Citigroup investment banking chief Michael Klein struck an $11 billion merger with insurance company MultiPlan.

Oakland A’s executive Billy Beane—portrayed by Brad Pitt in “Moneyball”—has gotten involved with a SPAC that aims to buy a sports franchise.

Better performance

AP PHOTO

The blitz of blind-faith investing n the classic movie “The Producers,” Max Bialystock raises isn’t new. SPACs, also known as funds for his next show by hit- blank-check companies, have been around for decades and usually get ting up little old ladies.

“I made it out just like you told popular when the market gets topme: To cash,” said one woman as py. At a time when bankrupt comshe handed over a check. “That’s a panies, such as Hertz, see their stocks soar and worn-out funny name for a play.” brands, including Kodak, You may have laughed, get resurrected as pharbut the little old lady’s maceutical companies, money went into a musithere’s an especially eager cal called “Springtime for audience for SPACs. Hitler,” which became the Bill Ackman, a money surprise hit of the Broadmanager whose high way season. school friends gave him a The same hopes and T-shirt that read “A closed dreams are driving the mouth gathers no foot,” hottest business on Wall AARON ELSTEIN sent Wall Street aflutter Street. But instead of little last month when he old ladies investing in plays they know nothing about, in- raised a record $4 billion for a vestment pros are pouring billions SPAC. Ackman said he plans to use into companies they know nothing the money to acquire a unicorn— about. They are flocking to shell possibly Airbnb—and in the procompanies with no revenues, oper- cess spare the company the time ations or specific business plans— and expense of going public via a traditional initial public offering. If that doesn’t pan out, someone told the New York Post, he would like to use the SPAC money to enterprises lovingly known as spe- acquire Michael Bloomberg’s cial purpose acquisition news and data company, perhaps companies, or SPACs. In the sec- so one day it might be known as ond quarter a record $7.8 billion Ackman LP. Lest you think that sounds crazy, was shoveled into SPACs.

Years ago, the mark of status for certain people was investing with a famous hedge fund or privateequity manager. Today status seems to come from investing with anyone who could reasonably be called famous.

It helps that SPACs as a group have performed better lately.

When Crain’s took a look in 2018, the average SPAC had returned -0.8%. But since that time, SPACs that made an acquisition have generated an average return of 23.5%, according to SPAC Insider, which is better than the S&P 500’s 18.2%.

Two years isn’t very long to judge investment performance, although it sure beats underperforming.

Anyway, it’s clear more people than ever are ready to take a flying leap into the unknown. Although most probably wouldn’t put it this way, everyone wants to discover the next “Springtime for Hitler.” ■

THE PRODUCERS remember Bialystock and his partner, corrupt accountant Leo Bloom, cast a dude with the initials “LSD” in the lead role and never imagined their musical would be a smash hit.

With great risk comes great reward.

Shareholder approval While Messrs. Bialystock and Bloom planned to run off with the little old ladies’ money to Rio de Janeiro, SPAC investors are protected from promoters’ worst instincts.

Acquisitions must be approved by shareholders, and promoters must return the money if they fail to buy

a functioning business within a certain period of time, typically two years. SPAC investors also have pushed back against the huge slugs of stock that promoters previously reserved for themselves.

The poster child for success in blind-faith investing is DraftKings, the fantasy-sports gambling site that merged with a SPAC promoted by two Hollywood executives. The stock has tripled in value this year.

Scores of recovering investment bankers and respected corporate leaders are talking up the joys of SPACs.

POLITICS

Council members clash over Industry City rezoning

T

he controversial Industry City rezoning might not be dead after all, despite the City Council’s long-standing tradition of member deference.

Councilman Carlos Menchaca announced his opposition to the project July 28, but at least three of his colleagues have since said the city should move forward with it anyway based on its economic benefits. This goes against the City Council’s standard practice of deferring to local council members when it comes to projects in their district.

Brooklyn Councilman Robert Cornegy wrote in a Brooklyn Eagle op-ed that his borough could not

enue with no public subsidy whatsoever,” he wrote, adding that the developers “have already provided free job training and placement to thousands of Brooklyn residents through their Innovation Lab and have participated in more public forums than any other development project in memory.”

Hard to stomach Bronx Councilman Ritchie Torres and Queens Councilman Donovan Richards struck a similar note in an op-ed for the Daily News, which criticized the practice of member deference while touting the jobs and tax revenue Industry City would bring.

Watching the city lose out on a chance to create so many jobs while unemployment soars would be extremely hard to stomach, Richards said in an interview.

“If that means overriding member deference on something that has a direct impact on the entire city, I’m willing to do that, even as unpopular as it could be,” he said.

Menchaca’s office declined to comment on the council members’

“IT REALLY LOOKS LIKE A DESPERATE HAIL MARY PLAY

BY A SET OF LANDLORDS” afford to turn down a project like this, especially given the damage the pandemic has inflicted on the city’s economy.

“It will create 20,000 jobs and $100 million in new annual tax rev-

INDUSTRY CITY op-eds beyond a tweet Menchaca wrote to Torres urging him to “come to Sunset Park and meet the immigrant and working families here.”

“Ask them about IC and [its] ‘promise’ of jobs,” he tweeted.

“Then we can talk productively.”

Industry City spokesman Lee Silberstein said the owners were “encouraged by the perspective of the council members,” but he stopped short of saying whether or not they planned to withdraw their rezon-

ing application.

It is rare but not unprecedented for the City Council to vote on a land-use application over the local council member’s objection. There has been virtually no discussion about the city’s attempted Southern Boulevard and Bushwick rezonings since local Councilmen Rafael Salamanca and Antonio Reynoso came out against them in January. But the City Council did approve a mixed-use project in Dumbo in 2009 despite local Coun-

BUCK ENNIS

BY EDDIE SMALL

cilman David Yassky’s opposition.

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson did not respond to a request for comment about his stance on moving forward with Industry City.

Menchaca went through a lengthy back-and-forth with the Industry City owners—which include Jamestown, Belevedere Capital and Angelo Gordon—before ultimately coming out against the project, posting on Twitter that it was “time for a new beginning.”

The Industry City rezoning plan initially called to develop two hotels, 1 million square feet of commercial space and as much as 600,000 square feet of classrooms at the 16-building Sunset Park complex. It faced long-standing community opposition over fears that it would displace residents and small businesses.

The group Protect Sunset Park has been spearheading the opposition, and organizer Jorge Muñiz was largely dismissive of the council members’ arguments.

“It really looks like a desperate Hail Mary play by a set of corporate landlords who are trying to save their waterfront plan that has been rejected numerous times,” Muñiz said. ■

6 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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HEALTH CARE

New commish could unite Health Dept., hospitals

M

ayor Bill de Blasio’s appointment of Dr. Dave Chokshi as the city’s health commissioner aims to bridge the gap between the Health Department and the public hospital system. Chokshi inherits the job at a time when the city is desperately trying to stave off a resurgence of Covid-19 as well as cascading public health challenges caused by the pandemic.

Chokshi spent the past four years as NYC Health and Hospitals’ chief population health officer, overseeing programs such as improving primary care and addressing the so-

ing effects of the pandemic on mental health and other chronic illnesses.

“It all starts with the needs of New Yorkers,” Chokshi said. “My North Star in this role will be saving as many lives as possible and preventing as much suffering as possible.”

To succeed in the role, Chokshi will have to coor- CHOKSHI dinate the expertise in controlling infectious diseases at the Health Department with the operational scale at its partner agency, Health and Hospitals, which has community clinics that can provide testing and follow-up care.

Chokshi, a 39-year-old born and raised in Baton Rouge, La., served as a health policy adviser in his home state as it was recovering from Hurricane Katrina.

He was a White House fellow in the Obama administration working to implement the Affordable Care Act in the Department of Veterans Affairs before he came to New York City. He joined Health and Hospitals in 2014 and has worked both as BUCK ENNIS

BY JONATHAN LAMANTIA

“MY NORTH STAR IN THIS ROLE WILL BE SAVING AS MANY LIVES AS POSSIBLE” cial determinants of health.

He said last week that his top priorities in the new role will be preventing a resurgence of Covid-19, encouraging New Yorkers to get the flu vaccine and a potential coronavirus vaccine if one becomes available, and addressing the reverberat-

an administrator focused on improving the quality of care, particularly in the system’s outpatient clinics, and as an attending physician at Bellevue Hospital.

He is also a clinical associate professor of medicine and population health at the NYU School of Medicine.

“It was time for a change, and it was important to have a strong leader ready to step in who had experience,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “One thing that distinguishes Dave is his experience in the Department of Health, experience in Health and Hospitals and [his] ability to think about how to bring all those pieces together.”

Colleagues describe Chokshi as capable of building consensus as the city faces difficult decisions regarding the reopening of schools and offering guidance to New Yorkers reliant on public transit.

“Having been a leader at H&H and DOHMH will be an asset for moving those pieces in unison,” said Dr. Nicholas Stine, a former colleague of Chokshi at the health system who is now senior vice president for population health at CommonSpirit Health in San Fran-

cisco. “I’m confident he can manage these dynamics.”

Goodbye, Barbot Chokshi’s appointment came as a surprise and followed the dramatic departure of Dr. Oxiris Barbot, who shared her resignation letter with The New York Times shortly before de Blasio announced her replacement.

“I leave my post today with deep disappointment that during the most critical public health crisis in our lifetime, that the Health Department’s incomparable disease control expertise was not used to the degree it could have been,” Barbot wrote.

Barbot clashed with de Blasio over the timing of his decision to close schools in March. Tension was apparent again in May, when he made Health and Hospitals responsible for contact tracing despite the Health Department’s decades of experience tracking down New Yorkers who have been exposed to infectious diseases.

She also was at odds with the NYPD, with the New York Post reporting she had used controversial language with top police officials to rebuff their demands for personal protective equipment at the height of the crisis.

Delivering best-in-nation care—for every New Yorker

Her presence at de Blasio’s Covid-19 briefings became less frequent as Health and Hospitals officials came to serve as the public face for testing and tracing.

Carlina Rivera, chair of the City Council’s hospitals committee, said she was disappointed that a Latina leader in city government felt she was forced to leave her position after standing by her decisions.

“Dr. Barbot’s departure confirms to experts and advocates watching in the health community what many of us have feared—that there are political-first decisions being made at City Hall at a time when the health and safety of New Yorkers should be our guiding principles,” she said in a statement.

Chokshi needs to gain the trust of both the mayor and the city at a point when government health officials are having trouble gaining the public’s trust, said Dr. Amanda Parsons, deputy chief medical officer at MetroPlus, the city-run insurer, and a former Health Department deputy commissioner.

“I think having somebody that the mayor trusts that is going to be able to speak regularly and be consistently visibly to people is going to be one of the most important things we need out of our commissioner right now,” Parsons said. ■

*

U.S. News & World Report recently named 5 Northwell hospitals among the very best in the country, recognized for top care in 20 specialties. From orthopedics to cardiac surgery, we’re here to provide greater access to world-class services no matter where you live. Because when every New Yorker is cared for, we can overcome anything and truly thrive—together.

Northwell.edu/NationsBest

Northern Westchester Phelps

Glen Cove

Mather Hospital

Peconic Bay

Huntington

Syosset North Shore Lenox Hill University Plainview Southside Long Island Jewish LIJ Forest Hills South Oaks Cohen Children’s Nassau Maimonides Medical Medical Center University Medical Center (Affiliate) Center (Affiliate) LIJ Valley Stream Staten Island University (North) Staten Island University (South) Zucker Hillside

*North Shore University Hospital and Cohen Children’s Medical Center: Ranked in 9 specialties each; Long Island Jewish Medical Center: Ranked in 5 specialties; Lenox Hill Hospital: Ranked in 3 specialties; and Huntington Hospital: Ranked in 1 specialty

AUGUST 10, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 7

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8/7/20 10:52 AM

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

EDITORIAL

associate publisher Lisa Rudy

Stop raiding bankrupt businesses by granting executives big bonuses

EDITORIAL editor Robert Hordt assistant managing editors

Christine Haughney (special projects), Janon Fisher, Gabriella Iannetta (digital)

unfriendly place to a worker than a bankruptcy court.”

But Fairway’s CEO is not alone in the selfishness and greed he is displaying through one of the worst crises in this nation’s history.

American companies from Fairway to Ann Taylor to Modell’s are bestowing bankruptcy bonuses on top executives at a remarkable rate.

In this week’s cover story, Crain’s found that 50 companies in the first half of this year followed this pattern. In one of the most egregious cases, a court recently ruled that Neiman Marcus could hand out a combined $10 million in bankruptcy bonuses for its top executives while the company furloughed 14,000 workers.

Bankruptcy bonuses have been a problem for decades. These greedy golden parachutes received so much public scrutiny during the Enron scandal that Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act in 2005.

The law bans companies in Chapter 11 protection from paying retention bonuses to senior managers. However, the law allows “incentive” bonuses to executives who are able to achieve challenging performance goals.

But one year later, an American

BANKRUPTCY BONUSES HAVE BEEN A PROBLEM FOR DECADES function through the pandemic out of business.

The radically different treatment between supermarket worker and supermarket CEO is a bitter pill for Fairway workers to accept— especially because 50 employees developed Covid-19, and one worker died. As Fairway’s union rep told Crain’s, “There is no more

Frederick P. Gabriel Jr.

senior editor Telisha Bryan associate editor Lizeth Beltran (digital) art director Carolyn McClain photographer Buck Ennis data editor Gerald Schifman senior reporters Aaron Elstein,

Jonathan LaMantia reporters Suzannah Cavanaugh,

Ryan Deffenbaugh, Gwen Everett, BLOOMBERG

I

t’s a startling contrast: One Fairway Market worker who sliced deli meats and cheeses through the pandemic for $33,000 a year was laid off last month with no notice. At the same time, Fairway CEO Abel Porter was promised a $325,000 bonus—all for shepherding the supermarket chain through bankruptcy.

What’s more troubling is that it was Porter’s second bonus in the past six months. He and his management team received a combined $1.1 million in bonuses just before Fairway filed for bankruptcy in January—as a thank-you for leading a company that has served an essential

publisher/executive editor

Bankruptcy Institute online poll found that the majority of members of the profession “strongly agreed” that companies were already sidestepping the legislation—while it was in its infancy.

Bankruptcy experts quickly found that the performance goals executives had to meet were set at such a low bar that most executives could easily achieve them.

There are plenty of experts in bankruptcy law who see a clear path to fixing these problems. In 2019 Jared A. Ellias, a law professor at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law, suggested that Congress provide the Department of Justice with funding for its own executivecompensation experts to help police executive bonuses.

Congress also could create new

post-bankruptcy reporting requirements that track how much compensation senior management receives two years after bankruptcy.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a bankruptcy expert, also has been encouraging reform for years. In January, well before the world had any idea that a pandemic that would ravage the nation’s health and economy was on the way, she proposed a plan to roll back some of the favorable provisions for corporations in the 2005 bankruptcy reform law and give middleclass debtors more relief.

A spokesman for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, sponsor of the 2005 legislation, told Crain’s that the senator would look into reviewing that 15-year-old law.

It’s critical for Congress to take up this fight. ■

Jennifer Henderson, Brian Pascus, Natalie Sachmechi, Eddie Small contributors Ronald DeCicco,

Cara Eisenpress, C. J. Hughes, Steve Krupinski, Danielle McManus Sladek, Mark Yawdoszyn to contact the newsroom:

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Sophia Juarez, sophia.juarez@crainsnewyork.com EVENTS

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

OP-ED

Ana Jimenez, ajimenez@crainsnewyork

Healthy Terminals Act will sicken the city’s airports

REPRINTS director, reprints & licensing Lauren Melesio,

212.210.0707, lmelesio@crain.com PRODUCTION production and pre-press director

Simone Pryce media services manager Nicole Spell

BY TOM GRECH

R

ick Cotton, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, recently announced that his agency had lost nearly $800 million because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

While that’s not surprising—air travel is down 50% across the country, and New York’s airports are experiencing a nearly 70% reduction in flights—it underlines how difficult rebuilding our local economy will be.

Queens is the aviation borough.

Kennedy and LaGuardia airports are important economic drivers, employing more than 49,000 people and contributing to more than $64 billion in economic activity throughout the region. The tourists and business travelers who come to New York through Queens’ airports are vital to the success of tens of thousands of local businesses. If our region is going to recover from

this economic crisis, our airports and the airline industry have an important role to play.

This would modernize our airports and create more than 100,000 direct and indirect jobs. Thirty percent of the vendors used for these projects are expected to be minority- and women-owned business enterprises. This vision is in jeopardy because the economic crisis has hit aviation particularly hard.

Airline revenue crunch With fewer Americans flying, particularly to New York, the airlines have far less revenue. Airlines are taking a wide range of measures to reduce their cash burn, including cutting executive compensation, implementing voluntary leave and early retirement programs, and laying off and furloughing workers.

Now more than ever, it’s important that we support this crucial industry’s recovery—and not add to its pain with costly, unfunded man-

dates. The state Legislature recently passed the New York Healthy Terminals Act, which would require employers at airports to pay wages and benefits at levels set by the city comptroller or the state Labor Department. The legislation would add substantial costs to businesses already facing declining revenue.

This bill will have far-reaching, unintended consequences. An insolvent airline industry would be devastating to the very workers the legislation is intended to help, but massive job losses are a likely result of this bill. Imposing higher labor costs on an overburdened industry that is already teetering on the brink will make the projects to improve our airports impossible to fund, denying opportunities to hundreds of minority- and women-owned business enterprises.

While the desire to help these workers is understandable, the timing couldn’t be worse. For the sake of our economic recovery, the

governor must veto it.

Thanks to Cuomo’s leadership, we’ve flattened the curve and we are winning the battle against the coronavirus. All of us made sacrifices because it was the right thing to do. But this virus has come with a price. Businesses are hurting, and they can’t take any more pain.

We cannot allow this poorly timed legislation to become law.

We must hit the pause button on it and allow the aviation industry to recover. Now is not the time to stop the progress we have made and abandon the governor’s vision for world-class airport infrastructure in Queens.

This bill would hurt the very workers it was designed to help, and worst of all, it would jeopardize the economic recovery of our entire region. ■

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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]

Tom Grech is the president and CEO of the Queens Chamber of Commerce.

8 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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OP-ED

Let the music play on—safely

I

understand the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, and bars and restaurants. There is a difference between a sit-down experience and a standing one. Like the difference between listening to a classical concert from a grass picnic pod and a hardcore band in a raging mosh pit.

I have owned venues with bars and the attendant liquor licenses for more than 35 years across the country. Alcohol is served in stadiums, music venues and airports, and it’s a way of life—not to mention a source of employment—for

that we need to “shut down all bars if we are going to reopen schools and our economy.” No, that is not what we need to do.

There’s a difference Gov. Andrew Cuomo has smartly seen a distinction in New York City between sit-down restaurants that serve food and encourage social distancing and standing bars that seem to disregard public safety.

But I’m supportive and behind bars that are cognizant of the challenges of keeping their staff and patrons safe and that are desperately trying to stay alive. There is a balance that can be achieved between professionally operated spaces and fools who don’t serve right (pardon the pun; I don’t mean we don’t serve the right, which seems to follow President Donald Trump’s disregard for mask wearing and all that it symbolizes).

The State Liquor Authority seems to be able to enforce 21plus, no-smoking rules, etc., which our society needs. The power of sanction, especially over the lifeblood of holding an on-premise liquor license, certainly must be used to enforce the law. As Cuomo said, there should be “no tolerance

WE URGENTLY NEED TO FIND WAYS TO CREATE SAFE ENVIRONMENTS millions of Americans. From the age of 21 to 30, most people use the mix of alcohol, standing and partying as their primary means of socialization.

Covid-19 has changed that, and since March 15 most of “smart America” has stopped serving.

But I am frustrated to continuously hear from elected officials

A NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC concert

STEPHANIE BERGER

BY MICHAEL DORF

for illegal and reckless endangerment of public health.”

So, we need to quickly establish laws that stop super-spreader events like the Chainsmokers concert in the Hamptons that took advantage of the drive-in concept of a concert. But don’t stop all musical events because some people disregard the rules. We need safe outdoor concerts today that people can enjoy safely. Musicians desperately need the ecosystem of live

music, which for some is their only source of revenue.

We urgently need to find ways to create safe environments of limited capacity—professional places where people can sit, eat, drink and listen to music. The blanket restriction on live music has given rise to a growing, unsupervised, at-home backyard concert culture, which is counterproductive to our critical public health and economic goals.

Let us responsible holders of li-

quor licenses take on the challenging business of live music that we have built our careers doing.

We need to be smart about the reopening of our world, but it does need to reopen before our industry and all live entertainment is dead.

Put people who disregard the rules behind bars, but don’t kill all bars! ■ Michael Dorf is the founder and CEO of City Winery.

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AUGUST 10, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 9

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1 THE LIST

1

LARGEST ENGINEERING FIRMS Ranked by number of New York–area engineers

RANK

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

NEW YORK–AREA ENGINEERS 2019/ 2018

WORLDWIDE ENGINEERS 2019/ 2018

2019 FIRMWIDE REVENUE (IN MILLIONS)

COMPANY/ ADDRESS

PHONE NUMBER/ WEBSITE

SENIOR EXECUTIVE(S)

WSP USA 1 Penn Plaza New York, NY 10119

212-465-5000 wsp.com

Lou Cornell Chief executive

797 819

27,058 26,950

$6,954.4

Thornton Tomasetti Inc. 51 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10010

917-661-7800 thorntontomasetti.com

Peter DiMaggio, Michael Squarzini Co-chief executives Thomas Scarangello Executive chairman

336 324

980 980

$285.0

Langan 21 Penn Plaza New York, NY 10001

212-479-5400 langan.com

David Gockel President, chief executive

313 287

571 525

$307.0

STV 225 Park Ave. South New York, NY 10003

212-777-4400 stvinc.com

Dominick Servedio Executive chairman

225 229

586 440

$582.5

Architecture: 30% Construction inspection: 5% Construction mgmt.: 20% Engineering: 45%

Highbridge Interchange rehabilitation design-build for Posillico Civil Inc. and the state Department of Transportation; South Beach Psychiatric Center new residential building for Dormitory Authority of the State of New York

GPI Greenman-Pedersen Inc. 21 W. 38th St. New York, NY 10018

646-791-8800 gpinet.com

Denise Carter Executive vice president, metro-area branch manager

212 207

395 381

$300.8 Construction inspection: 25% Construction mgmt.: 35% Engineering: 35% Facility assessment: 5%

George Washington Bridge rehabilitation construction management; Bayonne Bridge navigational clearance program construction management

AECOM 605 Third Ave. New York, NY 10158

212-973-2900 aecom.com

Denise Berger Chief operating officer, Northeast John Cardoni Executive vice president, Northeast

200 209

10,750 12,280

$20,200.0

Jacobs 500 Seventh Ave. New York, NY 10018

908-646-6550 jacobs.com

Julie Chang Vice president, director of New York operations

183 148

11,866 13,941

$12,737.9

Hardesty & Hanover 1501 Broadway New York, NY 10036

212-944-1150 hardestyhanover.com

Sean Bluni Chief executive

154 148

248 237

$113.0

Stantec Consulting Services Inc. 475 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10017

212-366-5600 stantec.com

Tom Walsh Vice president

145 141

3,381 3,407

$3,638.6

HNTB New York Engineering and Architecture 350 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10118

212-594-9717 hntb.com

Stephen Dilts Senior vice president

137 138

1,200 1,000

$1,362.1

Dewberry 132 W. 31st St. New York, NY 10001

212-685-0900 dewberry.com

John Boulé Senior vice president Craig Johnson Executive vice president

128 123

589 659

Arup 77 Water St. New York, NY 10005

212-896-3000 arup.com

Nigel Nicolls Principal New York group leader

120 123

590 595

$2,400.0

H2M Architects & Engineers 538 Broad Hollow Road Melville, NY 11747

631-756-8000 h2m.com

Richard Humann President, chief executive

92 83

92 83

$84.0

McLaren Engineering Group 131 W. 35th St. New York, NY 10001

212-324-6300 mgmclaren.com

Malcolm McLaren Chief executive

85 75

95 79

$48.5

DeSimone Consulting Engineers 140 Broadway New York, NY 10005

212-532-2211 de-simone.com

Stephen DeSimone President, chief executive

75 68

111 106

$52.0

Engineering: 97% 77 Greenwich and One Willoughby Facility assessment: 3% Square for FXCollaborative

Mueser Rutledge Consulting

917-339-9300

Peter Deming Senior partner

72 77

72 77

$37.5

Engineering: 100% Little Island at Pier 55 for Hudson River Park Trust; 207th Street yard flood protection for the city Transit Authority and Walsh Construction

914-769-3200 savinengineers.com

Rengachari Srinivasaraghavan President

70 65

80 75

$41.0

mrce.com 10 | CRAIN’SEngineers NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

Savin Engineers 3 Campus Drive Pleasantville, NY 10570

RECENT PROJECTS/CLIENTS

Construction mgmt.: 15% Kosciuszko Bridge for the state Engineering: 83% Department of Transportation; Facility assessment: 2% 55 Hudson Yards for Related Cos. Architecture: 12% LaGuardia Airport Terminal B; Engineering: 48% Sunnyside Yard Facility assessment: 35% Other: 5% Engineering: 100% 4 Hudson Square; Bronx Point

Architecture: 12% n/d Construction inspection: 1% Construction mgmt.: 17% Engineering: 70%

Architecture: 7% Construction inspection: 7% Construction mgmt.: 34% Engineering: 47% Facility assessment: 5%

Major Deegan Expressway rehabilitation for the state Department of Transportation; OMNY for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Construction inspection: 7% Kew Gardens Interchange; Construction mgmt.: 8% Unionport Bridge Engineering: 85% Architecture: 7% Lower Manhattan coastal Engineering: 93% resiliency in the Battery Architecture: 1% Construction inspection: 5% Construction mgmt.: 14% Engineering: 80%

Project and construction management services for the Department of Design and Construction's coastal resiliency projects; Penn Station access design

$470.9 Construction inspection: 20% Hunts Point interstate access Engineering: 80% improvement for the state Department of Transportation; civil, utilities and waterfront upgrades for the Made in NY campus at Bush Terminal

14 Penn Plaza New York, NY 10122

P010_P011_CN_20200810.indd 10

NEW YORK–AREA SERVICE MIX (PORTION OF BILLINGS)

Engineering: 82% Coney Island green infrastructure Other: 18% for city Economic Development Corp.; Solar Carve Tower for Studio Gang Architecture: 36% Construction inspection: 8% Construction mgmt.: 7% Engineering: 44% Facility assessment: 3% Other: 2%

Brooklyn Navy Yard resiliency program; Water Authority of Western Nassau County wellhead treatment system

Construction inspection: 8% 420 Kent; marine engineering of Construction mgmt.: 5% NYC Ferry landings Engineering: 60% Facility assessment: 15% Other: 12%

Architecture: 5% Playland in Rye, NY; Wards Island 8/6/20 10:32 AM Construction inspection: 20% wastewater treatment plant Construction mgmt.: 23%

1 1 1

RAN

12 13

14

2 5

6

7

8 9

1

1

1

1

1 1 1

os.

y

e

ad

of

hby

on ard sit on

nd

campus at Bush Terminal

12 13 14 15 16 1 RANK

2 17 3 18 19 4 20 5

Arup 77 Water St. New York, NY 10005

212-896-3000 arup.com

Nigel Nicolls Principal New York group leader

120 123

590 595

$2,400.0

H2M Architects & Engineers 538 Broad Hollow Road Melville, NY 11747

631-756-8000 h2m.com

Richard Humann President, chief executive

92 83

92 83

$84.0

Architecture: 36% Construction inspection: 8% Construction mgmt.: 7% Engineering: 44% Facility assessment: 3% Other: 2%

McLaren Engineering Group 131 W. 35th St. New York, NY 10001

212-324-6300 mgmclaren.com

Malcolm McLaren Chief executive

85 75

95 79

$48.5

Construction inspection: 8% 420 Kent; marine engineering of Construction mgmt.: 5% NYC Ferry landings Engineering: 60% Facility assessment: 15% Other: 12%

DeSimone Consulting Engineers COMPANY/ 140 Broadway ADDRESS New York, NY 10005

212-532-2211 PHONE NUMBER/ de-simone.com

Stephen DeSimone President, chief executive

NEW YORK–AREA 75 ENGINEERS 2019/ 68 2018

WORLDWIDE 111 ENGINEERS 2019/ 106 2018

Mueser Rutledge Consulting WSP USA Engineers 1 Penn Plaza 14 NewPenn York,Plaza NY 10119 New York, NY 10122

917-339-9300 212-465-5000 mrce.com wsp.com

Peter Deming Lou Cornell Senior partner Chief executive

72 797 77 819

72 27,058 77 26,950

$37.5 $6,954.4

Engineering: Island Bridge at Pier for 55the for state Hudson Construction mgmt.:100% 15% Little Kosciuszko Park Trust; 207th Street yard Engineering: 83% River Department of Transportation; protection city Transit Facility assessment: 2% flood 55 Hudson Yardsforforthe Related Cos. Authority and Walsh Construction

Savin Engineers Thornton Tomasetti Inc. 351Campus MadisonDrive Ave. Pleasantville, NY 10570 New York, NY 10010

914-769-3200 917-661-7800 savinengineers.com thorntontomasetti.com

Rengachari Srinivasaraghavan Peter DiMaggio, President Michael Squarzini Co-chief executives Thomas Scarangello Executive chairman

70 336 65 324

80 980 75 980

$41.0 $285.0

Architecture:12% 5% Playland Rye, NY;Terminal Wards Island Architecture: LaGuardiain Airport B; ConstructionEngineering: inspection: 20% treatment plant 48% wastewater Sunnyside Yard Construction mgmt.: 23% Facility assessment: 35% Engineering: Other:50% 5% Facility assessment: 2%

Langan Tetra Tech/Cosentini 21 Penn Plaza 498 New Seventh York, NY Ave. 10001 New York, NY 10018 STV Tectonic 225 ParkEngineering Ave. South Consultants, Geologists & 10003 Land Surveyors New York, NY 118-35 Queens Blvd.

Forest Hills, NY 11375

212-479-5400 212-615-3600 langan.com tetratech.com cosentini.com 212-777-4400 718-391-9200 stvinc.com tectonicengineering.com

David Gockel Douglas Mass President, chief executive President, Cosentini Associates Dominick Servedio Donald Benvie Executive chairman President, chief executive

313 68 287 73

571 416 525 493

$307.0 $3,100.0

225 65 229 60

586 76 440 76

$582.5 $93.8

Boswell Engineering 330 Phillips Ave. South Hackensack, NJ 07606 GPI Greenman-Pedersen Inc. 21 W. 38th St. New York, NY 10018

201-641-0770 boswellengineering.com 646-791-8800 gpinet.com

Stephen Boswell President, chief executive Denise Carter Executive vice president, metro-area branch manager

62 58 212 207

63 58 395 381

$40.1

WEBSITE

SENIOR EXECUTIVE(S)

$52.0 2019 FIRMWIDE REVENUE (IN MILLIONS)

$300.8

Engineering: 82% Coney Island green infrastructure Other: 18% for city Economic Development Corp.; Solar Carve Tower for Studio Gang Brooklyn Navy Yard resiliency program; Water Authority of Western Nassau County wellhead treatment system

Engineering: 97% 77 Greenwich and One Willoughby Square for FXCollaborative

NEWFacility YORK–AREA SERVICE 3% MIX assessment: (PORTION OF BILLINGS)

RECENT PROJECTS/CLIENTS

Engineering: 100% 4 Hudson Square; Bronx Point Engineering: 100% 66 Hudson Blvd. for Tishman Speyer Properties; 76 11th Ave. for HFZ Capital Group Architecture: 30% Highbridge Interchange jails program Construction Constructioninspection: inspection:27% 5% Borough-based rehabilitation design-build forfor Department Design and Construction mgmt.: 33% 20% city Posillico Civil Inc.ofand the state Street yard Engineering: 40% 45% Construction; Department of207th Transportation; flood for the city Southmitigation Beach Psychiatric Center Transit Authority building for new residential Dormitory Authority of the Construction inspection: 51% Garden Parkway median State ofState New York Construction mgmt.: 10% barrier design for New Jersey Authority; New York ConstructionEngineering: inspection: 39% 25% Turnpike George Washington Bridge for Portconstruction Authority of Construction mgmt.: 35% Harbor rehabilitation York and New JerseyBridge Engineering: 35% New management; Bayonne Facility assessment: 5% navigational clearance program construction management

 AECOM � � 212-973-2900 Denise Berger � �

200 10,750 $20,200.0 12% n/d Â?

 �    � ­ Architecture:

 € ‚ 605 Third Ave. aecom.com Chief operating officer, 209 12,280 Construction inspection: 1% ƒ„ ƒÂ? ƒ… ƒ Â

6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

New York, NY 10158

Northeast John Cardoni Executive vice president, Northeast

Construction mgmt.: 17% Engineering: 70%

Jacobs 500 Seventh Ave. New York, NY 10018

908-646-6550 jacobs.com

Julie Chang Vice president, director of New York operations

183 148

11,866 13,941

$12,737.9

Hardesty & Hanover 1501 Broadway New York, NY 10036

212-944-1150 hardestyhanover.com

Sean Bluni Chief executive

154 148

248 237

$113.0

Stantec Consulting Services Inc. 475 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10017

212-366-5600 stantec.com

Tom Walsh Vice president

145 141

3,381 3,407

$3,638.6

HNTB New York Engineering and Architecture 350 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10118

212-594-9717 hntb.com

Stephen Dilts Senior vice president

137 138

1,200 1,000

$1,362.1

Dewberry 132 W. 31st St. New York, NY 10001

212-685-0900 dewberry.com

John BoulĂŠ Senior vice president Craig Johnson Executive vice president

128 123

Arup

212-896-3000

Nigel Nicolls Principal New York group leader

120 123

77 Water St. Simmons,arup.com Rache MD, FACS New York, NY 10005

Breast Surgeon Weiskopf Professor Oncology Richard Humann H2M Architects & Engineers of Surgical 631-756-8000 538 Broad Hollow Road h2m.com Associate Dean of Diversity and Inclusion President, chief executive Melville, NY 11747 Director, Office of Women Co-Director Women Physicians of NewYork-Presbyterian

Major Deegan Expressway rehabilitation for the state Department of Transportation; OMNY for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Construction inspection: 7% Kew Gardens Interchange; Construction mgmt.: 8% Unionport Bridge Engineering: 85% Architecture: 7% Lower Manhattan coastal Engineering: 93% resiliency in the Battery Architecture: 1% Construction inspection: 5% Construction mgmt.: 14% Engineering: 80%

Project and construction management services for the Department of Design and Construction's coastal resiliency projects; Penn Station access design

Congratulations to Dr. Rache 589 $470.9 Construction inspection: 20% Hunts Point interstate access Simmons for being 659 Engineering:named 80% improvement for the state Department of Transportation; civil, utilities and waterfront one of Crain’s inaugural upgrades for the Made in NY campus at Bush Terminal 590 $2,400.0 Engineering: 82% Coney Island green infrastructure Notable Women inOther:Talent.

595 18% for city Economic Development Corp.; Solar Carve Tower for Studio Gang

92 83

We commend Dr. Simmons’ commitment to leadership 92

$84.0

Architecture: 36% Brooklyn Navy Yard resiliency

and equity the sciences.

Herprogram; continued 83 for women in Construction inspection: 8% Water Authority of

Construction mgmt.: 7% Western Nassau County wellhead

work on initiatives like job satisfaction, promotions, Engineering: 44% treatment system Facility assessment: 3%

and compensation equity will allowOther: women physicians 2% to reach95their full potentials. $48.5 Construction inspection: 8%

McLaren Engineering Group 131 W. 35th St. New York, NY 10001

212-324-6300 mgmclaren.com

Malcolm McLaren Chief executive

85 75

DeSimone Consulting Engineers 140 Broadway New York, NY 10005

212-532-2211 de-simone.com

Stephen DeSimone President, chief executive

75 68

111 106

$52.0

Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers 14 Penn Plaza New York, NY 10122

917-339-9300 mrce.com

Peter Deming Senior partner

72 77

72 77

$37.5

Savin Engineers 3 Campus Drive Pleasantville, NY 10570

914-769-3200 savinengineers.com

P010_P011_CN_20200810.indd 11

Architecture: 7% Construction inspection: 7% Construction mgmt.: 34% Engineering: 47% Facility assessment: 5%

420 Kent; marine engineering of Construction mgmt.: 5% NYC Ferry landings Engineering: 60% Facility assessment: 15% Other: 12%

79

weillcornell.org

Engineering: 97% 77 Greenwich and One Willoughby Facility assessment: 3% Square for FXCollaborative Engineering: 100% Little Island at Pier 55 for Hudson River Park 207th Street yard AUGUST 10, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEWTrust; YORK BUSINESS | 11 flood protection for the city Transit Authority and Walsh Construction

Rengachari Srinivasaraghavan President

70 65

80 75

$41.0

Architecture: 5% Playland in Rye, NY; Wards Island Construction inspection: 20% wastewater treatment plant8/6/20 10:32 AM Construction mgmt.: 23%

REAL ESTATE

Foreign buyers take a step back from New York real estate

BY NATALIE SACHMECHI

tional buyers, most inquiries and sales are coming from New Yorkers, Compass agent Vickey Barron said.

During the pandemic, all transactions at Madison House, a new luxury development in NoMad, have been made by locals, although there has been some interest from foreigners, Inzirillo said. He added that he expects more foreign involvement once travel restrictions ease.

E

verybody wants a piece of New York. Or at least they used to.

Be they international students, workers from out of town or foreigners in search of a cosmopolitan pied-à-terre, travel bans and other pandemic-related restrictions are keeping buyers away from some of the world’s most sought-after properties. Instead, the market is being driven—slowly—by locals looking to upgrade their home or take advantage of surging inventories and low prices, said Jared Antin, sales director at Elegran.

The real estate firm’s agents have noticed that for the first time in its 12-year history, they’re experienc-

Travel challenges Christie’s broker Erin Aries said the biggest challenge facing the market for international clients is not being able to fly in and see properties. Most of the clients she works with are looking at prices that are too high to buy sight unseen, she said. She has been providing her buyers with virtual tours and videos.

Travel aside, buyers from abroad can’t enjoy what they love about the city now, anyway, Antin said.

With no indoor dining, a shutdown of theaters and other arts venues and a sluggish retail scene, there’s not much for them to do here, he said.

An influx of tourists usually is accompanied by a spike in international buyers, said Jonathan Miller, a founding partner at real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel. The countries with the most tourists traveling to New York also represent the most buyers, he said.

Columbia, NYU and other large universities are keeping much of

BUYERS FROM ABROAD CAN’T ENJOY WHAT THEY LOVE ABOUT THE CITY NOW ing a market primarily driven by New Yorkers, Antin said.

“It’s a type of buyer who lives and works in New York City and loves it and knows that things will eventually return to normal,” said Leonard Inzirillo of Douglas Elliman.

They’re either looking for more space or to relocate closer to their work, he said.

At 100 Barclay St., 49 Chambers St., 514 W. 24th St. and other developments that historically have received a lot of interest from interna-

BILLIONAIRES ROW ment to buyers across the pond.

Today the mansion tax on top of a stronger dollar is making it more difficult for foreigners to get a piece of the pie, Miller said. Since 2014, the dollar has appreciated 21% against the yuan and 24% against the pound.

Activity is down across the board, said Noble Black, a luxury broker at Douglas Elliman. He did have an overseas buyer make an offer for a property after seeing only a virtual tour. But demand from the group is still lower than it was a few years back, Black said.

Chinese money Chinese interest isn’t as high as it used to be, because of barriers to moving currency out of the country, Black said, though the Chinese still are among the top buyers. Chinese money was one of the biggest drivers for foreign apartment pur-

chases from 2010 to the end of 2015, Miller said.

When Barron was working with a Chinese client in 2019, she performed a tiered closing because the buyer needed at least a year before he could pull enough cash out of China to pay for the property.

Black said that lately he has had more clients from Turkey and the rest of the Middle East. Geopolitical instability drives the clients to the relative safe investment haven of Manhattan real estate, he said.

“They always think New York City real estate is a solid place to put their funds,” said D’Arc, whose international clients have come mainly from London.

“The U.S. is so safe comparatively,” Miller said, “even with all of this going on.”

Black blames most of the out-oftown sales slump on logistics.

“They’ll be back,” he said. ■

REAL ESTATE

Legendary Katz’s pivots to delivery, outdoor dining

ISTOCK

BLOOMBERG

cies such as pastrami, latkes, soups and mustard across the country.

(Federal records show the restaurant has also received funding through the government’s Paycheck Protection Program.)

It has also set up outdoor dining for the first time in its history and created a structured line within the restaurant to avoid crowding around the cash registers. ■

Facebook to lease all office space at Farley Building

BY EDDIE SMALL

F

acebook has officially signed its long-rumored lease for 730,000 square feet at Vornado’s Farley Building by Penn Station, significantly increasing its rapidly growing footprint in the city.

The tech giant will occupy all of the office space at the Farley Building under the deal. Vornado has been working to transform the historic building into a mixed-use development as part of its more than $2 billion effort to renovate the neighborhood surrounding Penn Station, where it owns 10 million square feet.

When completed, the Farley Building will include the Moynihan Train Hall, Facebook’s offices and 120,000 square feet of retail space.

“We are delighted to welcome Facebook to the Farley Building, a property like no other in New York City,” Vornado Chairman Steven Roth said in a statement.

THE FARLEY BUILDING Facebook had been in talks about the transaction for months, and the lease is just its latest significant expansion in the city. The company signed a deal late last year to lease more than 1.5 million square feet from The Related Cos. and Oxford Properties Group at 30, 50 and 55 Hudson Yards. It also leases space at Vornado’s 770 Broadway.

“The Farley Building will further anchor our New York City footprint and create a dedicated hub for our tech and engineering teams,” Robert Cookson, Facebook’s vice president

COURTESY OF VORNADO REALTY TRUST

RESTAURANTS

NEW YORK CITY icon Katz’s Delicatessen, the 132-year-old home of heaping pastrami sandwiches, is accustomed to serving thousands of customers per day. But social-distancing measures have drastically changed how the restaurant does business.

A drop in tourism—New York City hotel occupancy plunged to as low as 15% in late March—combined with an outflow of residents has led to a major loss in business for Katz’s. The deli now brings in about 100 customers a day, compared with as many as 4,000 prior to the pandemic.

That said, Katz’s has managed to keep all 200 of its employees on the payroll, thanks in part to its delivery business, which ships delica-

their coursework online this year— which is bound to keep their enormous international student populations (17,000 at NYU) at home. In the past, many of the calls that Compass broker Pamela D’Arc received were from foreigners looking to purchase homes for their children who were attending college in the city. That interest has dropped in the past few months, she said.

“This year,” Miller said, “the international component [of the real estate market] is very weak compared to four or five years ago.”

The strength of the dollar is one of the biggest drivers of demand for the city’s real estate, he said. As the U.S. started recovering from the financial crisis, foreign demand boomed in response to a weakened dollar that made real estate cheaper for international buyers, he said. By 2015 there was tremendous interest from Europe and Brazil, with Chinese investors joining shortly afterward, he said.

Ownership on Billionaires Row in Midtown, which houses much of the city’s cultural appeal, was 85% international, Miller said, while downtown was 80% local. Although international occupancy on Billionaires Row is still high, it’s not at 85% anymore, Barron said.

Before the financial crisis, the Irish were driving international real estate transactions, with middle-class buyers purchasing million-dollar homes because the exchange rate was so favorable to them, Miller said, recalling units that were presold during develop-

COURTESY OF STREETEASY

Instead, the market is being driven by New Yorkers

of real estate, said in a statement.

The deal marks a rare bright spot for Manhattan’s office market, which the coronavirus crisis has largely upended.

Although July was the most active office-leasing month for the borough since January, with companies signing deals for 2.4 million square feet of space, that number was still much lower than the roughly 5.2 million square feet signed for in the borough in July 2019, a report from Colliers International found. ■

12 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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CORONAVIRUS ALERT Invitation to Prequalify and to Bid

Port Authority reports revenue down $800M

Rehabilitation and Flood Mitigation of the New York Aquarium, Brooklyn, NY Turner Construction Company, an EEO Employer, is currently soliciting bids for the Rehabilitation and Flood Mitigation of the New York Aquarium from subcontractors and vendors for the following bid packages:

Executive director says declines wholly caused by Covid-19 crisis

BY BRIAN PASCUS

P

COTTON said his agency is in dire need of federal aid.

ort Authority of New York and New Jersey Executive Director Rick Cotton said his agency is facing an unprecedented financial crisis, and revenues were down nearly $800 million from late March through June.

“With the unprecedented declines in activity volumes at our facilities, the Port Authority is faced with a financial reality unlike any in recent memory,” Cotton said July 30 during a Crain’s summit on transportation.

“This second-quarter financial performance represents one of the worst downturns in the agency’s history,” Cotton said. “During every single month of that period, nearly $240 million of revenue that the agency counted on to support its capital plan was lost.”

Cotton said the revenue declines were wholly the result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

During his remarks, Cotton recounted the dramatic declines the Port Authority has seen in passenger activity volume across its various transportation sectors, which include three airports, a train system, multiple seaports and various bridges and tunnels.

Airport ridership decreased 98% from 2019 and is still down 86%. PATH train ridership fell 95% by the same measure and was down 84% in July. Bridge and tunnel traffic fell 62% from its 2019 levels and is now down about 15%, while seaport cargo is down about

In order to receive the bid packages, potential bidders must submit a complete Subcontractor endor re uali cation tate ent rior pre uali cation su issions that reain current will e considered as pre iousl su itted or a e updated at this ti e All bidders must prequalify by the bid deadline August 26th, 2020 and submission of a pre uali cation state ent not later than ugust th , is strongl encouraged All bidders must have an acceptable EMR, and will be subject to government regulations such as and ederal ecuti e rder uccessful idders will e re uired to use racker co pliance eri cation software Note that while this is a New York it pre ailing wage pro ect, union a liation is not re uired for BP#35 o o tain further infor ation a out contracting opportunities and or the pre uali cation package and bid solicitation package/s, please contact Macarena Bermudez ( er ude tcco co or - he date for the irtual pu lic opening urner onstruction o pan o ce located at 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York, is August 27th, 2019 at 11 am.

Link for virtual opening: Please join my meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone" https glo al goto eeting co oin

As bad as the present may be, the future painted by Cotton is even grimmer. He said the Port Authority is anticipating a $3 billion loss in revenue in the 24-month period between the second quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2022.

While the agency has budgeted to complete major construction projects already underway at LaGuardia Airport’s new concourses, Newark Liberty International Airport’s Terminal 1 and JFK International Airport’s Terminal 8, the projected revenue declines during the next two years could put other capital projects at risk.

“The revenue losses caused by the coronavirus crisis will force the Port Authority to reevaluate the scope and schedule of every other major project on this list,” Cotton said. “They are all in jeopardy.”

Projects now at risk of remaining incomplete include a Lincoln Tunnel helix, the PATH improvement plan, Superstorm Sandy recovery work and AirTrains at both LaGuardia and JFK airports.

Cotton said the Port Authority has requested a one-time emergency relief payment from Washington of $3 billion to cover the revenue losses and keep capital plan operations alive.

“We have very limited federal support. That comes about in a crisis environment,” said Libby McCarthy, CFO of the Port Authority, who mentioned federal finan-

“REVENUE THAT THE AGENCY COUNTED ON TO SUPPORT ITS CAPITAL PLAN WAS LOST” 17% on the year.

“Those declines are simply stunning,” Cotton said.

During the panel, guests discussed the numbers with a sense of disbelief.

“The shocking has become commonplace,” said Tom Wright, president and CEO of the Regional Plan Association. “We never anticipated something like this.”

Cotton was quick to note that unlike other government agencies, the bistate Port Authority is a self-sustaining agency that is financially independent from both New York and New Jersey, and it doesn’t receive state revenues— points that seemed to underscore its dire fiscal situation.

“We don’t have the power to tax.

We don’t regularly go to D.C. seeking federal funding,” he said. “The Port Authority generates its own revenues from its operations.”

Only bids responsive to the entire scope of work will be considered and, to be successful, idders ust e pre uali ed urner erti ed M/WBE and Small Business (13 CFR part co panies are encouraged to su it

BUCK ENNIS

‘Simply stunning’

BP #35 Sea Cliff’s Electric (Bid, Payment & Performance Bond Required)

cial relief was granted following 9/11 and Superstorm Sandy. “This crisis is a crisis like that.”

Supporting McCarthy’s call for federal funding, Wright emphasized that any taxpayer money should be viewed as relief that provides the authority with a bridge toward a healthier future and not as a stimulus.

Structural questions One panelist took the authority to task for the way it has structured its fiscal house.

Nicole Gelinas, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said the bridges and tunnels made a $700 million profit for the Port Authority in a pre-Covid-19 economy, and the airports bring in an additional $800 million profit on average.

But she noted that much of that money goes toward subsidizing losses of the PATH train line, the Port Authority bus terminal and the rebuilt World Trade Center, which Gelinas said loses $400 million per year.

“The coronavirus really calls into question the entire financial structure of the Port Authority,” she said.

Despite her objections to the way the authority has handled its fiscal house, Gelinas said she supports emergency funding from the federal government.

“Certainly, in terms of federal money for the region, anything that provides basic services to people needing to get around right now, that’s where the money goes to,” she said, “and beyond that, capital projects if we need to.” ■

STRATEGIC

business advice from experienced A&E advisors will add certainty to your future. grassicpas.com/constructionae

AUGUST 10, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 13

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8/6/20 5:14 PM

ASKED & ANSWERED Realty Advisory Board

DOSSIER WHO HE IS President, Realty Advisory Board

INTERVIEW BY SUZANNAH CAVANAUGH

AGE 60

hen Howard Rothschild took a post at the Realty Advisory Board, he assumed it would be a starter job.

Thirty-six years later, Rothschild serves as president, helping building owners and labor unions forge agreements on workers’ rights.

After the pandemic introduced new sanitation and social-distancing guidelines, he mediated the renegotiations of contracts affecting thousands of workers to satisfy unions and employers.

GREW UP New Hyde Park, Long Island

What does the Realty Advisory Board do?

substance abuse, homelessness and mental illness, and preschoolage children with disabilities.

W

We engage in the negotiation and implementation of many different collective-bargaining agreements, which are union contracts. After you negotiate the contracts, there are often disputes. So we resolve disputes between employers, employees and unions.

How did the pandemic change things?

The collective-bargaining agreements—the regulations on how to deal with employees and the running of a building—often couldn’t work during the pandemic. I spent the last four months dealing with the veteran agreements that had been written over the course of 80 years, determining what rules work and what rules don’t.

How many have you had to alter?

We have changed the apartment building agreements,

RESIDES Edison, N.J. EDUCATION Bachelor’s in political science and history, Hofstra University; Juris Doctor, Hofstra Law School UNION MEMBERS The board covers 19 unions, including the Service Employees International Union and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, representing more than 80,000 workers.

GIVING BACK Rothschild is involved with charitable causes involving adolescent

AMAZIN’ LOYALTY Rothschild calls himself a long-suffering yet dedicated fan of the New York Mets.

commercial building agreements, window cleaning agreements, the security agreement. We have an agreement for the contractors. I would put

The pandemic has rendered some jobs, such as that of elevator operators, less desirable for building tenants and owners. How have you changed contracts to allow those workers to stay employed?

What buildings have done in many cases is redeployed the elevator operators to do other work. For example, the operator might be redeployed to do extra cleaning. The elevator operator right now might be superfluous, but the need for deep cleaning might be much greater.

How do you find common ground?

Some people characterize the union and management as opposite sides. That’s not the way I look at it. I look at it from the point of view that these are union members, but members are all employees, and we have long-term relationships between owners and employees, and it’s best for everyone to resolve issues.

What were the challenges of conducting negotiations during the shutdown?

The way an arbitrator will resolve disputed facts is to make credibility determinations of witnesses. That's difficult to do in person; it's even more difficult to do via videoconference.

What standards will unions require in their contracts going forward?

I would expect that health and safety issues will be a more prevalent concern on both sides in future bargaining. We will continue to work creatively and constructively to reach mutually satisfactory solutions. ■

JILL LOTENBERG

HOWARD ROTHSCHILD

the number somewhere at eight or nine, but it’s really not indicative because they basically cover tens of thousands of employees.

INSIDER HEALTH CARE

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14 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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SPONSORED CONTENT

Tax considerations in selling a medical practice in today’s market The Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed in 2010 has brought a wave of consolidation to the medical practice industry. Driving this trend are the significant new demands placed on medical practices because of the ACA’s ‘triple aim’ to improve the patient care experience, improve the overall health outcomes for patients, and reduce the per capita cost of healthcare. Medical practices have been forced to make a significant investment in electronic health records and shift their reimbursement model from a fee-for-service model that ties payment to volume, to a new, fee-for-value model tying payment to meeting cost and performance thresholds. With these new demands, more medical practices are finding it difficult to stay independent.

Compounding the issues noted above has been the deep and widespread impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Patient volumes have declined precipitously, while patient demand for comprehensive telehealth and other virtual health options has skyrocketed.

According to the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s (HFMA) Health Care 2020 Report, M&A growth for medical practices has surged in the past few years and will stay strong in 2020.

While M&A activity in the first and second quarters of 2020 has been well below expectations, it is anticipated that an even larger wave of deals will hit the industry over the next 12 months as medical practices feel the sustained financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The two primary acquirers of medical practices have traditionally been health systems and private equity investors.

Health System Acquisitions

Health systems are typically interested in acquiring medical practices for two primary reasons. First, in order to spur success under the fee-for-value reimbursement model, health systems have attempted to align themselves with a sufficient number of providers, across the continuum of care, to take on significant risk with patient populations. Second, health systems are interested in shoring up downstream referrals into their hospitals —particularly as the number of hospital-based services continues to decrease due to price pressures and the increasing ability to provide care in an ambulatory setting.

When a health system acquires a medical practice, the physician owner (“PO Seller”) typically sells 100% of their ownership interests and becomes a health system employee. The value in the practice is typically created because the PO Seller’s postacquisition compensation as an employee is directly related to the provision of medical services as opposed to the profit of the business.

Private Equity Acquisitions

Private equity firms believe the consolidation of medical practices can offer a strong investment return for numerous reasons, including

current market fragmentation, insufficient capital invested in medical practices, and an aging population. This combination of increasing demand and current inefficiencies in the market is attractive to private equity firms that have a driving imperative to put investors’ capital to productive use.

When a private equity (“PE”) firm acquires a medical practice, it generally purchases a majority of the medical practice’s equity, while the PO Seller retains the remaining equity. After a holding period that typically ranges from three to seven years after the sale, the PE firm will look to sell the medical practice to another buyer, in what is referred to as a “second bite of the apple” transaction.

Tax Considerations

From a federal income tax perspective, the tax implications to a PO Seller will vary depending on the medical practice’s corporate structure, as well as the form of the sale. If the medical practice is organized as a C-Corporation (including a professional corporation), any gain on the sale by the PO Seller of the corporation’s stock (assuming it was held for more than one year) would be subject to long-term capital gains tax at a rate of 20% plus the 3.8% “Net Investment Income Tax“(“NIIT”). This is assuming

any constitutional aspects have been decided on by the Supreme Court. Alternatively, if the assets of the corporation were sold, then the corporation would be subject to corporate tax at a 21% rate, and the PO Seller would be subject to a second level of tax upon the distribution/dividend of cash to the PO Seller at a rate of 20% plus the 3.8% NIIT. Since buyers tend to prefer asset purchases to avoid any potentially unknown liabilities and to allow for a step up in the basis of acquired assets, PO Sellers must be proactive in planning the sale of a medical practice organized as a corporation.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Aaron Cohen

Andrew Rotter

David Seiden

JD, Principal & Practice Co-Leader, Healthcare

JD, CPA, Partner & NYC Office, Tax Practice Leader

CPA, Partner & Practice Leader, State and Local Tax

CONTACT US:

Aaron Cohen: acohen@citrincooperman.com Andrew Rotter: arotter@citrincooperman.com David Seiden: dseiden@citrincooperman.com

Preparation, planning, and strong leadership are crucial now more than ever to be the differencemaker between success and failure. Tomorrow’s business world will be anything but normal. Every business needs a comprehensive playbook to navigate the types of changes we face today and transition into tomorrow’s reimagined normal.

Many medical practices are structured as a pass-through entity (“PTE”) such as an S-Corporation, partnership, or limited liability company. The biggest advantage of a PTE, as compared to a C-Corporation, is the single level of taxation on income generated by the PTE. In general, the sale of a PTE ownership interest by a PO Seller produces tax results similar to the sale of stock in a C-Corporation. However, an asset sale by a PTE results in one level of tax paid by the PO Seller verses the double taxation of a C-Corporation.

capital gains tax treatment.

In addition to the federal income tax burden PO Sellers face, state taxes can potentially reduce the amount of net proceeds to a PO Seller by eight percent or more. Similar to federal income tax, the form of the sale and type of legal entity play an important role in determining the state tax costs of a transaction. However, the state of residency (for purposes of this article, residency and domicile have the same meaning) of the PO Seller can have the most significant effect.

While a PTE only has one level of tax, the character of the assets sold by the PTE will determine the tax rate attributed to each class of asset. For example, the sale of accounts receivable, furniture and fixtures, and other tangible property are typically taxed at the ordinary income rates, while intangible assets (such as goodwill) would generally receive favorable

In general, the sale of the stock in a C-Corporation or equity interest in certain PTEs should only be taxed by the PO Seller’s state of residency. For example, if a PO Seller’s state of residency is New York State, the PO Seller will pay up to 8.82% on any gain from the sale of stock as compared to zero if the PO Seller was a resident of Florida. The state tax costs

can go up substantially if the PO Seller is a New York City (12.7%), New Jersey (10.75%), or California (13.3%) resident.

Alternatively, if the PTE sold its assets, the gain from the sale of such assets will typically be taxed by the state(s) where the medical practice does business.

While changing the state of residency for a PO Seller is not always possible, if the PO Seller is contemplating retiring after the transaction and is considering living in a no-tax or low-tax state (Florida, Texas, Nevada, etc.) post retirement, proper planning before the transaction happens could result in significant state tax savings.

Conclusion

It is critical that PO Sellers pay appropriate attention to the tax considerations of a potential sale. Proper tax planning takes time, and therefore, should be considered when the possibility of a sale first arises. ■

“Some eras are more epic than others, and some moments more meaningful.

This is one of those.

We are facing a new horizon, in a world that needs science and healing—we’ll get there together.”

Philip O. Ozuah, MD, PhD President and CEO, Montefiore Medicine

Montefiore-Einstein Congratulates Philip O. Ozuah, MD, PhD On his inclusion in Crain’s 2020 Notable in Health Care, in recognition of his vision, leadership and dedication to a future of healthcare built on a foundation of global access to state-of-the-art care.

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CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS 2020

IN HEALTH CARE

NEW YORK’S HEALTH CARE SECTOR is no stranger to disaster.

Many of its doctors, nurses and scientists, among other players, have served on the front lines of crises dating back to the AIDS/HIV outbreak of the 1980s.

Very few, however, were fully prepared for the tragedy that unfolded earlier this year as the novel coronavirus spread through the region. The Covid-19 outbreak that officially claimed its first life in March at a Brooklyn hospital became the city’s worst mass casualty since the influenza outbreak of 1918.

And yet, as might be expected, the region’s health care sector mounted a gritty response. Doctors and nurses worked to save lives in underfunded public hospitals.

Many contracted Covid-19 and, after recovering at home, returned to the front lines.

Scientists at academic medical centers and drug companies joined the global race to develop therapies, and some now lead the way. Nonprofits found ways to offer free Covid-19 testing, food and other critical resources to the city’s hardest-hit communities.

The examples of courage, compassion, grit and ingenuity are seemingly endless.

This year’s Notable in Health Care special report, presented by Montefiore-Einstein, shines a light on many of those stories. It features the people who helped bend the region’s steep infection curve downward and are still working to alleviate the economic and humanitarian toll.

This report recognizes the innovation in health care that predates the crisis and arose from it, including the advances in telemedicine and scientific research.

It honors those working to fight health care disparities and other societal problems that the pandemic accentuated and that are seen anew through the lens of recent demonstrations against racial injustice.

JUDITH ABERG, MD

LEONARD ACHAN, RN

GIL ADDO

CARA AGERSTRAND, MD

SALOMON AMAR, DDS

Chief, division of infectious diseases and immunology, Mount Sinai Health System Director, infectious diseases, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

President, Innovation Institute, Hospital for Special Surgery Cofounder and chairman, Quality Reviews Inc.

Co-founder and chief executive officer RubiconMD

Associate professor of clinical medicine, division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine Columbia University Irving Medical Center/New YorkPresbyterian Hospital

Vice president for research and professor, New York Medical College Provost for biomedical research, Touro College and University System

To keep up with the surge of Covid-19 patients in city hospitals earlier this year, pulmonologists such as Dr. Cara Agerstrand acted as clinical supervisors, training and watching over teams of doctors and nurses with less experience in treating seriously ill patients. How colleagues learned new skills under pressure was impressive, Agerstrand said, adding she was grateful her skills, education and training enabled her to give back during the crisis.

Agerstrand has extensive experience in clinical care, research and education. She is the director of the medical extracorporeal membrane oxygenation program, which focuses on a specialized life support that acts as a temporary artificial lung.

Dr. Salomon Amar has been the driving force behind a partnership between New York Medical College and pharmaceutical giant Regeneron to determine whether a drug that is used to treat inflammation is an effective treatment for critically ill Covid-19 patients.

Early on in New York’s Covid-19 outbreak, he worked closely in a multi-industry effort to expedite approval for the clinical trial of Regeneron’s Kevzara at Westchester Medical Center. The trial began just three weeks after New York reported its first Covid-19 case.

Approval for such clinical trials normally takes at least six months.

His leadership has helped create a model for partnerships among medical schools, drug companies and hospitals.

Dr. Judith Aberg, an HIV and AIDS researcher, is on the leading edge of efforts to develop effective Covid-19 treatments. At Mount Sinai, she’s researching the use of plasma from people who have recovered from Covid-19 as a possible defense against the disease.

Hundreds of Covid-19 patients have participated in her study at Mount Sinai, which recently formed a partnership with a leading drug manufacturer to test whether a drug derived from the plasma of recovered Covid-19 patients helps prevent infection.

If effective, the drug would offer protection for health care and other essential workers until a vaccine is available.

As a C-suite executive, entrepreneur and academic, Leonard Achan has worked on the cutting edge of health care innovation for more than two decades. Achan, who began his medical career in nursing, joined the Hospital for Special Surgery as its chief innovation officer in 2016.

Three years later he rose to president of the Innovation Institute, where he leads commercialization of the hospital’s inventions in musculoskeletal care. Achan is the co-founder and chairman of Quality Reviews Inc., which builds proprietary digital platforms for health care providers that offer real-time feedback from patients and employees. Before joining HSS, Achan was chief communications officer and chief of access services of the Mount Sinai Health System. At the same time he served as senior associate dean for global communications, branding and reputation at the Icahn School of Medicine.

Driven by his family’s experience navigating the health care system, Gil Addo co-founded RubiconMD in 2013 to bridge the gap between primary and specialty care. Since then, the Manhattan company has raised more than $40 million in funding, including an $18 million round in March. Through its digital platform, RubiconMD allows primary care doctors to consult specialists online, making complex care available without patients needing to travel or wait for the next available appointment. The strategy is well suited for the Covid-19 era. Addo was inspired to start RubiconMD after his grandmother, diagnosed with a brain tumor, began commuting from her home in Barbados to Boston for surgery and post-op appointments.

When the Covid-19 pandemic hit New York, the state spent at least $2 billion on medical equipment and supplies, spending sometimes 15 times the normal amount for gear to outbid other states and overcome price gouging.

Source: Spectrum News NOTABLE SECTION PRESENTED BY MONTEFIORE-EINSTEIN

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ZEYAD BAKER, MD

GINA BARTASI

DAVID BATTINELLI, MD

ALLON BLOCH

MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG

President and chief executive officer OptumCare Tristate Region

Founder and chief executive officer Kindbody

Senior vice president and chief medical officer Northwell Health

Cofounder, chief executive officer K Health

Chief executive officer Bloomberg LP Former mayor, New York City

An entrepreneur and the mother of in-vitro-fertilization twins, Gina Bartasi is shaking up the fertility care business with her latest startup, Kindbody.

Bartasi founded the health-tech company in 2018 in response to a demand among employers to buy fertility benefits directly from health care providers.

Kindbody raised $32 million in July to fund further expansion.

It has raised about $64 million in all from investors that include the venture capital arm of Google parent Alphabet. The Manhattan company sells fertility-benefit packages to employers and offers gynecological services at its clinics and through more than 200 partner clinics. Demand has been strong for virtual fertility consultations. Kindbody’s revenue was 30% higher in June than in February, before the first case of Covid-19 was identified in New York.

Dr. David Battinelli was among the highest-profile figures during New York’s Covid-19 outbreak, and it’s not hard to see why.

Northwell, the state’s largest health care provider, treated about 50,000 more Covid-19 patients than any other provider.

Battinelli led a Northwell advisory group charged with overseeing clinical care, policies and standards for treating Covid-19, and he made media appearances to share insights into the pandemic. Battinelli has a wide-ranging portfolio at Northwell. Passionate about medical education and professional development, he runs a Northwell leadershipdevelopment program that has trained more than 150 clinicians.

In addition, he helped develop the curriculum for the Zucker School of Medicine, where he is vice dean.

OptumCare recently tapped Dr. Zeyad Baker to oversee its physician practices in New York, New Jersey and southern Connecticut.

OptumCare has about 1,500 doctors in the region and, with significant growth in Connecticut, plans to add hundreds more doctors by year’s end. For the past two years, Baker has led OptumCare’s ProHealth, one of the largest medical groups in the Northeast. In that role he spearheaded initiatives to improve care, the patient experience and access to care.

Baker, a former pediatrician, previously was co-president of New Jersey’s Riverside Medical Group, which he helped grow into a group practice of nearly 300 providers before Optum purchased it in 2016.

In 2016 Allon Bloch parlayed his wide-ranging experience as a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist to cofound K Health, a digital primary care service that uses artificial intelligence. The startup, which launched its product in mid-2018, raised $48 million in its Series C round in February, bringing total funding to $97.3 million. K Health offers a free AI-powered app to assess a patient’s symptoms, then lets the user, for a fee, schedule a telehealth visit with a doctor for personalized care and prescriptions. Bloch previously was the co-CEO of Wix, a website publishing platform, cofounder and CEO of online car retailer Vroom and CEO of mySupermarket, a digital platform for grocery shopping. He was a venture partner at Greylock Partners and a general partner at Jerusalem Venture Partners.

Billionaire entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg doesn’t suffer from a lack of name recognition. The former New York City mayor is the CEO of a major media company headquartered in the city, and briefly this year he was a Democratic presidential candidate.

Not everyone, however, is familiar with his commitment to improve public health, a major focus of grantmaking by his foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies. Recently the threeterm mayor launched a major effort to help fight the Covid-19 pandemic, including supporting mayors through a partnership with public health and management experts at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, and committing $40 million to help low- and middleincome countries fight the coronavirus. As mayor, he and his team developed a pandemic influenza plan for New York and led the city through the H1N1 virus outbreak. Bloomberg has been a global ambassador for the World Health Organization.

As of April, 90,000 health care workers had volunteered to help New York combat the coronavirus pandemic.

Source: The New York Times, April 8, 2020.

PATRICK BORGEN, MD

ANTHONY BOUTIN, MD

DANIEL BRILLMAN

KELLIE BRYANT

JOHN CARDASIS, MD

Chair, department of surgery Maimonides Medical Center

Interim president and chief executive officer, chief medical officer NuHealth

Cofounder and chief executive officer Unite Us

Assistant professor of nursing and executive director Helene Fuld Health Trust Simulation Center, Columbia University School of Nursing

Director, critical care White Plains Hospital

Dr. Patrick Borgen helped lead one of New York’s hardest-hit hospitals through the Covid-19 crisis, and he continues to battle the disease through his research efforts.

Borgen chairs the surgery department at Maimonides Medical Center and its medical science committee. He is in charge of the hospital’s efforts to participate in clinical trials for Covid-19 therapies and treatment protocols. As part of a study led by Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic, he manages convalescent plasma research.

Under Borgen and other hospital leaders, Maimonides took diverse measures to care for legions of critically ill Covid-19 patients. In May the 711-bed hospital in Brooklyn’s Borough Park celebrated a milestone, discharging its 1,000th Covid-19 patient.

Dr. Anthony Boutin, a champion for the underprivileged, is leading a safety-net hospital through a leadership transition and the Covid-19 crisis. In his role at NuHealth, Boutin leads Nassau University Medical Center, a challenged but essential Nassau County hospital. Boutin, a former chair of the medical center’s department of emergency medicine, was named chief medical officer last year and interim president and CEO in January. A few months later he rolled out a preparedness plan to help the medical center handle an anticipated surge of Covid-19 patients. The plan called for sourcing and stockpiling critical supplies and launching a staffing task force, among other steps that ultimately helped the 530-bed hospital care for large numbers of Covid-19 patients.

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Studies show the U.S. spends more on health care than many other countries, yet lags on issues such as chronic disease and obesity. Part of the problem, according to Daniel Brillman’s Unite Us, is the long-standing disconnect between health and social service providers. Brillman, an Air Force Reserve pilot who cofounded Unite Us in 2013, wants to help bridge that gap. The company has an outcome-tracking technology platform that connects health care providers and social services groups. It focuses on food, housing and other social determinants of health. Unite Us, which initially concentrated on matching veterans to support services, has raised more than $45 million.

This year it made its first acquisition, Staple Health, a social-determinants data firm.

Known for her calm demeanor and commitment to advancing nursing, Kellie Bryant has transformed the way Columbia University’s School of Nursing educates future health care providers. She’s especially proud of her successful campaign to outfit the Helene Fuld Health Trust Simulation Center with state-of-the-art technology. The simulation center allows nursing students to practice real-world clinical scenarios. This year Bryant played a lead role in the school’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. She used simulation training to redeploy nurses in the hospital to care for Covid-19 patients, and she led the donation of large amounts of protective gear from the simulation center to New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Bryant also found time to march with students in the recent protests for racial justice.

Dr. John Cardasis helped lead White Plains Hospital through the proverbial eye of the storm during New York’s Covis-19 outbreak. He expanded the hospital’s intensive care unit capacity by some 500% and created new ICUs that housed more than 200 critically ill Covid-19 patients. Known for his calm leadership style, Cardasis rapidly recruited and trained new ICU providers, taking on primary care duties himself. He created a team of orthopedic and thoracic surgeons to help wean Covid-19 patients off respirators by turning them on their stomachs, a technique known as proning.

Cardasis is credited with helping the Westchester County hospital successfully treat more than 800 Covid-19 patients.

NOTABLE SECTION PRESENTED BY MONTEFIORE-EINSTEIN

8/6/20 3:34 PM

Whole -You Care Driven by Whole-Hearted Commitment Congratulations to AdvantageCare Physicians’ President and Chief Medical Officer Navarra Rodriguez, MD for being recognized as an outstanding leader in the New York health care community and one of Crain’s Notable in Health Care.

AdvantageCare Physicians is one of New York’s largest primary and specialty care practices, dedicated to providing quality, personalized care that is focused on the whole patient.

Navarra Rodriguez, MD President & Chief Medical Officer AdvantageCare Physicians

Primary and specialty care with convenient locations throughout the New York metro area and Long Island.

CARING FOR THE WHOLE YOU. Visit us at acpny.com

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BRENDAN CARR, MD

NATALIA CINEAS, DNP, RN

JON COHEN, MD

LOUISE COHEN

LISA DEANGELIS, MD

Chair of emergency medicine Mount Sinai Health System and Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Senior vice president and system chief nurse executive NYC Health + Hospitals

Executive chairman BioReference Laboratories Inc.

Chief executive officer Primary Care Development Corp

Dr. Brendan Carr joined Mount Sinai in February, about a month before the first Covid-19 case was diagnosed in New York City. He may have been new to his job by the time the city’s Covid-19 outbreak was in full swing, but he played a central role in the sprawling health system’s response to the crisis. Carr spent his days at Mount Sinai’s eight hospitals, ensuring Covid-19 patients were safely transported throughout the system to alleviate pressure on Mount Sinai’s hard-hit community hospitals in Brooklyn and Queens. In addition, he worked to shore up the system’s supply chain and expand capacity in its emergency departments by having tents built outside the hospitals.

As chief nurse executive at NYC Health + Hospitals, Natalia Cineas led the country’s largest public health care system through the city’s Covid-19 outbreak. After being appointed to her position in March 2019, Cineas played a key role in crisis management.

Among other initiatives, she oversaw recruitment and deployment of more than 5,000 additional nurses and nursing specialists. With her nurses on the front lines of battling the coronavirus, Cineas helped implement emotional support and wellness programs specifically for them. She leads initiatives to support patient-centered care and to ensure patient satisfaction as she heads a staff of more than 9,600 nurses and 970 social workers. In addition, she oversees clinical operations and nurse education. Cineas cochairs a council that sets systemwide strategic diversity and inclusion priorities.

Under Dr. Jon Cohen’s direction, BioReference Laboratories has become a leading provider of Covid-19 diagnostic and antibody tests in New York and other states.

Earlier this year the firm landed a $150 million contract with New York state for analyzing Covid-19 diagnostic and antibody tests.

BioReference, a subsidiary of publicly traded OPKO Heath, has been testing samples collected at 11 drivethru facilities around the state. It has run some 20 walk-up testing centers.

Cohen’s previous public-sector experience as a chief policy adviser to former Gov. David Paterson helped the company connect quickly with the state and city to ramp up testing. In July, BioReference signed deals to test for Covid-19 among players and staff of the National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer.

At the Primary Care Development Corp., Louise Cohen works to expand and strengthen a primary care safety net that has been damaged by the Covid-19 crisis. PCDC provides capital and technical help to primary care providers.

In addition, the nonprofit advocates for increased primary care access, capacity, reimbursement and capital resources. The pandemic has put many primary care practices at risk of closure, and it has exacerbated longstanding health disparities.

Under Cohen, PCDC is pushing for rapid and targeted community-level investment in primary care. Without action, the organization expects health disparities to deepen. Cohen joined PCDC in 2015 from Public Health Solutions, where she oversaw programs to improve community health throughout the city.

Physician-in-chief and chief medical officer Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

In May, Gov. Andrew Cuomo mandated that every hospital stockpile at least 90

Dr. Lisa DeAngelis, a brain cancer expert, was named physician-inchief and chief medical officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering in the fall of 2019. She directs MSK’s clinical effort, overseeing the care of patients at 20 facilities, including the flagship 500-bed hospital. DeAngelis presides over the care given by more than 1,200 attending physicians and nearly 4,000 nurses. The 30-year veteran of the hospital previously chaired its department of neurology, and she co-founded the Brain Tumor Center. DeAngelis conducted clinical research that helped set the standard of care for central nervous system lymphoma. She first knew she wanted to become a doctor in the third grade. Her father encouraged her to make the most of her medical education and to commit to treating patients regardless of their ability to pay.

days’ worth of personal protective

equipment. As of July 29, New York had donated nearly 250,000 items of PPE and testing materials to other states.

Sources: amNY, CHANNEL 6-WRGB ALBANY

BENJAMIN DE LA ROSA, MD

JACQUELINE DELMONT, MD

MIKAEL DOLSTEN, MD

Infectious-diseases specialist Holy Name Medical Center

Chief medical officer Somos Innovation Founder and chief executive officer Delmont Medical Care

Chief scientific officer and president, worldwide research, development and medical Pfizer

Dr. Benjamin De La Rosa has served in the trenches of New Jersey’s Covid-19 outbreak and survived the disease. At Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, De La Rosa worked long hours, caring for Covid-19 patients and investigating new treatments and protocols. He was part of the team that treated the first American—Broadway producer Edward Pierce—to receive a promising therapy that originated in Israel. Pierce, who had been critically ill, began to improve soon after receiving the treatment. In March De La Rosa himself tested positive for Covid-19, but he experienced only mild symptoms. After recovering at home, he returned to work and continues to help lead the infectious-diseases and clinical research teams.

Dr. Jacqueline Delmont has led the charge at Somos, a nonprofit network of 2,500 independent doctors, to ramp up Covid-19 testing in underserved communities across the city. The native of Venezuela has worked with churches, government officials, Latin-American consulates, first responders, hospitals and private organizations to set up more than 50 testing sites. Covid-19 has taken a toll on low-income communities as well as the independent doctors who serve them. Under Delmont, Somos has helped the physician practices in its network access federal disaster relief. It encouraged them to look for inefficiencies and embrace telemedicine, among other steps to boost competitiveness and patient access.

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Dr. Mikael Dolsten is charged with advancing Pfizer’s scientific leadership in vaccines and gene therapies, among other areas—no small task under ordinary circumstances, let alone during a global pandemic.

Recognizing the need for collective action, Dolsten readily agreed earlier this year to have Pfizer participate in an unprecedented public-private partnership to prioritize vaccine and drug candidates, streamline clinical trials and coordinate regulatory processes. Under Dolsten, Pfizer’s aggressive, multipronged approach to developing a Covid-19 vaccine appears to be yielding results. In July the pharmaceutical giant began the last stage of an experimental Covid-19 vaccine study that is expected to enroll 30,000 people.

The company aims to file for regulatory approval or emergency-use authorization in October.

MICHELE DONATO, MD

AMY DORIN

Chief of stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy John Theurer Cancer Center Hackensack University Medical Center

President and chief executive officer The Coalition for Behavioral Health

Dr. Michele Donato is in a selfdescribed race against time to develop a treatment for the sickest Covid-19 patients. Donato is helping to lead a team of researchers and clinical experts at Hackensack University Medical Center that is scrutinizing the blood of recovered Covid-19 patients to discover more about the disease and develop new ways to fight it. Scientists from Hackensack Meridian Health Center for Discovery and Innovation also are involved in the research into a convalescentplasma treatment for the coronavirus. The study, announced in April, is one of several such clinical trials underway.

Convalescent plasma treatments have been used to fight past viral outbreaks. They entail infusing the antibody-rich blood of recovered patients into infected patients.

Amy Dorin is helping the city’s behavioral health community get back on its feet in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.

Dorin is among the industry leaders and public officials calling for more support for behavioral health providers who face lower revenue and higher costs because of the pandemic. At the same time New Yorkers are under stress from coping with the coronavirus and its economic impact, resulting in pent-up demand for mental health services. Dorin’s organization provides advocacy, training and other support for community-based behavioral health providers, many of them new to teletherapy. It recently launched a business recovery initiative to help its members develop strategies for sustainability.

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CITYMD OPERATIONS TEAM From left, Vincent Campasano, MD, senior vice president; Daniel Frogel, MD, senior vice president for medical operations

As a leading urgent care provider in the New York area, CityMD had a location that helped it play a significant role in treating and testing the communities it serves. During the outbreak, CityMD said, its front-line teams performed more than 500,000 Covid-19 tests and cared for more than a half-million patients in three months across the five boroughs—more than any health care system in the city. The company’s Operations Team, led by Dr. Dan Frogel and Dr. Vincent Campasano, managed to procure enough personal protective equipment for the staff to safely ramp up testing.

Through the efforts of the Operations Team, CityMD prepared its providers, staff and sites for the worst. CityMD was the first provider to offer widespread Covid-19 antibody testing to the public. On May 17, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a partnership with CityMD to offer large-scale, walk-in diagnostic Covid-19 testing to New Yorkers, including the uninsured, tripling the number of available testing sites citywide. One week ahead of schedule, the city—with the help of CityMD—reached its goal of testing 20,000 New Yorkers daily. Among the 379,000 confirmed cases in the city in July, nearly 40,000 of those diagnoses came from testing through CityMD.

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More than a Grantmaker: A Changemaker.

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Congratulations to David Sandman, Ph.D., on being named to the 2020 Crain’s Notable in Health Care list

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MICHAEL DOWLING

JASON FELDMAN

MARKI FLANNERY

ROBERT FORONJY, MD

OREN FRANK

President and chief executive officer Northwell Health

Co-founder and chief executive officer Vault Health

President and chief executive officer Visiting Nurse Service of New York

Chief of pulmonary and critical care SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University

Cofounder and chief executive officer Talkspace

Northwell Health, New York’s largest health care provider, has treated more Covid-19 patients— upward of 50,000—than any other organization in the country.

Company CEO Michael Dowling has likened the experience to going to war.

Indeed, he led Northwell through numerous battles, from creating hundreds of beds each day to securing protective gear for thousands of workers during New York’s recent surge. Dowling helped lead New York’s hospital community through the crisis, co-chairing a council to oversee hospitals’ efforts to boost their capacity by thousands of beds.

The thought leader has used his platform to take a stand on gun violence and other tough social issues, including a call for national unity against the pandemic.

After noticing that many of his male friends were reluctant to seek care for certain issues, Jason Feldman co-founded Vault Health in 2018 to provide specialized, at-home care for men.

Some men may be shy about seeking medical help, but Feldman’s startup is getting some attention. Earlier this year it raised $30 million to expand its reach. The company’s services include personalized treatment plans for sexual health, hair loss, prescriptions, house calls from providers and telemedicine services. In May, the company took its at-home proposition to a new level, announcing plans to offer a federally approved, at-home saliva test kit for Covid-19. Before launching Vault Health, Feldman was the head of Amazon Prime Video Direct.

Marki Flannery, a 38-year veteran of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, has been CEO of the huge nonprofit home-care agency since 2018. In her various roles, she’s helped the organization become one of the country’s largest nonprofit home- and communitybased health care providers.

During the Covid-19 outbreak, Flannery transitioned thousands of employees to remote work in short order. She helped procure more than $5 million in protective gear and other supplies, among other initiatives.

By providing uninterrupted care, VNSNY helped ease the burden on hospitals. Under a transition plan, Flannery will turn the organization’s reins over to its chief financial officer, Dan Savitt, early next year.

Dr. Robert Foronjy helped care for some of the hardest-hit communities in the city’s Covid-19 outbreak, and he did so under less-than-ideal conditions.

University Hospital was one of three city facilities directed

by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to treat only Covid-19 patients. The 376-bed hospital is publicly funded and has been described in news reports as under-resourced and aging. Many of its patients are poor and people of color and hail from neighborhoods with relatively high rates of chronic diseases. Despite worries about his own health and the state of his hospital’s aging facilities, Foronjy cared for an avalanche of Covid-19 patients. He has said the episode highlighted the city’s health care disparities.

The coronavirus pandemic is pushing more Americans to access health care remotely.

Talkspace, founded in 2012 by Oren Frank and his wife, Roni, already has proven that therapy is well-suited to virtual care.

The Manhattan digital mental-health platform connects people to licensed therapists through a mobile application.

In May, Talkspace announced an agreement with Cigna that brought to 40 million the number of insured individuals who are covered for its services. Talkspace already was growing quickly before the pandemic hit. In May 2019 it raised $50 million to expand its national network. This past May, the company reported that insurance coverage for Talkspace had increased fivefold year-over-year. Olympian Michael Phelps is both an investor and a spokesman.

LINDA FRIED, MD

JAMES GASPERINO, MD

ROSA GIL

JASON GOREVIC

SCOTT HAYWORTH, MD

Dean Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Chair, medicine; vice president, critical care perioperative and hospital medicine; associate chief medical officer Brooklyn Hospital Center

Founder, president and chief executive officer Comunilife

Chief executive officer Teladoc Health

President and chief executive officer CareMount Medical

The role of public-health experts has never been more important or under greater attack. Dr. Linda Fried leads one of the country’s major public-health schools and has engineered a strong response to Covid-19 on multiple fronts.

In addition to the traditional research role of public health, the school’s experts are shaping government responses and contingency planning.

They’ve served as media sources and mobilized critical volunteer efforts. Fried, an authority in geriatric medicine, is part of a team of experts on aging that’s tracking how people are coping with the pandemic. The findings of this global study could help governments and policymakers address the pandemic’s mental-health consequences. Social distancing and other containment measures may give rise to unprecedented levels of loneliness and social isolation, particularly among the elderly.

Brooklyn Hospital Center, a 450-bed, acute-care hospital in Downtown Brooklyn, was hit hard by the Covid-19 outbreak. Many of its doctors and nurses were sickened during the outbreak.

The hospital ran out of critical supplies, from protective gowns to the main sedative for patients on ventilators. Under the leadership of Dr. James Gasperino, the hospital dealt with the flood of patients to its emergency department by building an outdoor tent to screen people for Covid-19. It redeployed health care workers from departments that had cut back on services, among other emergency measures. In 2017 Gasperino transformed critical-care medicine at Brooklyn Hospital by hiring new faculty, redesigning critical operations and adding a fellowship program in critical care.

Earlier this year, Rosa Gil’s housing nonprofit, Comunilife, stepped up to provide what she called “the last leg of recuperation” for the city’s homeless Covid-19 patients.

Comunilife worked with New York-Presbyterian and Mount Sinai hospitals to expand its medical respite program. It established an 84-bed facility in Manhattan to provide short-term housing for Covid-19 patients who had been discharged from the hospitals and needed a safe place to quarantine while recovering. Gil has had a long and distinguished career in the city’s health, mental health, supportive housing, social service and higher education sectors.

Among other roles, she chaired NYC Health + Hospitals and served as a health policy adviser to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

A pandemic is an ideal time to specialize in telehealth services.

In the first quarter, Teladoc’s revenues climbed 41% compared to the year-earlier period, to more than $180 million. Total visits rose 92% to 2 million. Teladoc is poised for growth as virtual care becomes a necessity for all health care providers.

Driven by a passion for improving health care outcomes and access, Jason Gorevic has helped to turn Teladoc into a telemedicine powerhouse since he took over its reins in 2009.

With more than 3 million members, the Purchase-based publicly traded company provides access to affordable care through videoconferencing and telephone consultations with board-certified physicians.

Teladoc is expected to become an even-larger player in telemedicine when its planned merger with Livongo Health, a provider of digital health management for chronic conditions, closes later this year.

With many patients putting off preventative services and screenings during the pandemic, health care leaders worry that there’s another crisis in the making.

Telehealth is one way to give patients access to care. Under Dr. Scott Hayworth, CareMount Medical performed 1,500 telehealth visits a day during the peak of the Covid-19 outbreak compared with the typical six telehealth visits a day. CareMount, one of the country’s largest independent multispecialty groups, expects usage to remain high after the pandemic.

Hayworth, an obstetrics and gynecology specialist who started practicing medicine at CareMount in 1988, oversaw a major expansion of the medical group.

It grew from 40 physicians to 650 providers, including 500 doctors in the Hudson Valley and New York City.

7 p.m. Friday, March 27 was the first night thousands of New Yorkers took several minutes to applaud first responders, health care workers and essential workers.

Source: ABC 7 News 22 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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Congratulations!

SOMOS is proud to recognize

Dr. Jacqueline Delmont Chief Medical Officer of SOMOS Innovation

for being honored as one of Crain's Notable Women in Health Care.

SOMOS applauds Dr. Delmont's bold leadership and dedication to SOMOS's mission of providing culturally competent community-based primary care to the most vulnerable communities in New York and beyond.

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DAVID HO, MD

KATHERINE HOCHMAN, MD

CAROL HOROWITZ, MD

KAREN IGNAGNI

LETITIA ‘TISH’ JAMES

Founding scientific director and chief executive officer, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center Professor of medicine, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

Associate professor, New York University Grossman School of Medicine Associate chair for quality of care, director of hospitalist program, NYU Langone Health-Tish Hospital

Professor of population health science and policy Professor of medicine, and dean for gender equity in science and medicine at Icahn school of medicine at Mount Sinai

President and chief executive officer EmblemHealth

Attorney general, New York state Former public advocate, New York City

Dr. David Ho made a name for himself decades ago with his pioneering HIV research, which led him to advocate for a therapy that has dramatically reduced AIDS deaths. More than 10 million patients have benefited from combination antiretroviral therapy since the mid-1990s. Ho is now leading research teams that are applying lessons learned from decades of HIV research to fighting the novel coronavirus. Ho’s team has isolated antibodies from several Covid-19 patients that are potent in neutralizing the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Such antibodies could be produced in large quantities to treat patients and prevent infection. Recently the foundation founded by Jack Ma of Alibaba fame gave Ho and his research teams $2.1 million to support their efforts.

Even while quarantined, Dr. Katherine Hochman helped lead NYU Langone’s response to the Covid-19 crisis. She created a “Covid Army” by redeploying more than 850 doctors, front-line staff and even medical students to provide support.

Through daily Covid-19 update emails, often dotting clinical care policy updates with personal reflections or anecdotes, Hochman kept personnel updated and spirits high. When Covid-19 patients were in isolation and separated from friends and family, she implemented the Family Connect program to enhance communications. Many health systems restricted visitors to reduce the spread of infections. By reviewing charts and consulting with care teams, Family Connect teams monitored the progress of Covid-19 patients and regularly updated their families through phone calls and videoconferences.

Dr. Carol Horowitz, a professor, researcher and practicing internist, leads a fledgling research initiative at Mount Sinai that seeks to understand and combat health disparities in underserved communities.

Horowitz directs the Institute for Health Equity Research, announced in May. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on nonwhite, low-income and immigrant communities, underscoring the need for research on health disparities and initiatives that shaped the findings. Earvin “Magic” Johnson and state Sen. Brian Benjamin are in a task force helping to steer and publicize the institute’s research. In addition, Horowitz leads Mount Sinai’s gender equity efforts to correct inequities in compensation, hiring and promotion, and eliminate bias.

Karen Ignagni took the reins of EmblemHealth in 2015 and has since worked to improve the experience of its more than 3 million members and expand its regional reach. As head of one of the largest nonprofit health insurers, she has been outspoken about the need to restore federal funding for public health and address disparities in health care. With the Covid-19 crisis accelerating the use of telehealth, a recent study from EmblemHealth shined a light on the link between access to technology in lower-income communities and health care disparities. Ignagni says the crisis illuminates the need for both quality home care and the full integration of behavioral health and acute care. Ignagni previously led the trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans.

In that role she helped shape the Affordable Care Act.

Letitia James has demonstrated a fierce commitment to public health throughout her career in public service—from fighting for access to women’s reproductive health care to pressing for measures to protect the public from gun violence and ensuring access to health insurance. She is the first woman of color to hold statewide office in New York and the first woman to be elected state attorney general. In January she led a coalition of Democratic attorneys general in petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case on the future of the Affordable Care Act. She was part of a coalition of 16 attorneys general who supported legal action to ensure states can enact restrictions to protect against gun violence.

is proud to congratulate our President

Michelle Zettergren for being honored as one of Crain’s Notables in Healthcare.

As we serve the region’s workers amid unprecedented challenges, we thank you for your visionary and fearless leadership that always puts our customers first.

24 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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How You Move Inspires Us.

Congratulations Leonard Achan, RN, MA, ANP President, HSS Innovation Institute

Thank you for your dedication, vision and leadership.

We salute you and all those recognized for being Notable in Healthcare.

HSS.edu

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SCOTT LORIN, MD, PRESIDENT, AND MOUNT SINAI BROOKLYN The coronavirus pandemic has tested the will and determination of many health care teams around the city.

At Mount Sinai Brooklyn, a 212-bed community hospital in Midwood, Covid-19 deeply affected its team of nurses, physicians, transporters and personal care assistants, among other workers.

The Mount Sinai Brooklyn team responded swiftly to combat Covid-19 and saved hundreds of lives as a result. Under its president, Dr. Scott Lorin, the hospital put together a strong, agile and resilient leadership team. The Emergency Department became a vital community resource to treat and stabilize patients with the coronoavirus. A comprehensive critical care program became crucial during the height of the pandemic. The hospital’s grit and determination in fighting Covid-19 were chronicled in a New York Magazine article in June: “The virus hit Mount Sinai Brooklyn early and hard. That it survived without seriously rationing care or a complete breakdown is no small feat. It did so in part due to quick decisions on the individual level and a bureaucratic hospital system’s embrace of flexibility.” The Mount Sinai Health System, it added, saw “the crisis management at Brooklyn as an example of the system working as it should, one big interlinked family sharing knowledge and resources.”

White Plains Hospital Congratulates

Dr. John Cardasis Director of Critical Care On being named among the 2020 Crain’s Notable in Health Care.

A true healthcare hero, he led our Hospital through the COVID-19 crisis with compassion and courage.

26 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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HEALTHIER FUTURES As one of the nation’s largest non-profit health insurers, EmblemHealth is committed to creating healthier futures for our customers, our communities, and for the health care industry in New York and beyond.

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP Congratulations to EmblemHealth President & CEO Karen Ignagni on being recognized as an industry-defining leader and one of Crain’s Notable in Health Care in New York.

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WALTER JIN

PAT KANE, RN

OLIVER KHARRAZ, MD

ANUJA KHEMKA

ERIC KINARIWALA

Chairman and chief executive officer Pager

Executive director New York State Nurses Association

Founder and chief executive officer Zocdoc

Executive director Children’s Hope India

Founder and chief executive officer Capsule

Walter Jin, who has overseen more than $5 billion in investments in the health care sector during his equity and venture capital career, took over the reins of the mobile health tech firm Pager in 2017. Amid growing demand for telehealth services, Pager raised $33 million in financing in March to expand its offering to new markets. Pager’s virtual care companion, marketed to health insurers and providers, allows patients to interact with health care providers through chat, voice and video. Pager said the process is designed to mimic what it is like to have “a doctor in the family” by providing a personalized, connected care experience. Since its launch in 2014, Pager has raised some $64 million.

Pat Kane, a registered nurse and longtime leader of the New York State Nurses Association, took the reins of the union in December, just months before many of its members were hit hard by the Covid-19 outbreak. Under Kane, the union, which represents 42,000 nurses, responded by advocating for protective gear and pressuring the state Department of Health and certain hospitals to do more to protect the health and safety of nurses treating Covid-19 patients.

Kane, a former operating-room nurse, joined the union in 1986 and became its treasurer in 2012, a position she held until last year.

During her tenure, she’s helped steer the union toward successful contract campaigns and focused on safe staffing, climate justice and guaranteed universal health care.

By this own account, Dr. Oliver Kharraz comes from a line of doctors dating back 300 years.

Now he’s making a name for Zocdoc by bringing some aspects of medicine into the modern age. Kharraz, a former McKinsey consultant, co-founded Zocdoc, an online, medical appointmentbooking platform, to make it easier and faster for consumers to find nearby doctors and schedule visits. With a growing demand for telehealth, the company added an option for doctors to offer video visits. Some 8,000 providers initially signed on. It rolled out a videoconferencing service that doctors can use, for free, for telehealth visits. With its recent expansion into telehealth, Zocdoc is going up against companies that specialize in the field as well as consumer-facing platforms, such as Skype and Zoom.

As the new executive director of Children’s Hope India, Anuja Khemka already has made her mark with the nonprofit’s response to Covid-19. The organization, which works to lift children in India and New York from poverty, launched a rapid-relief program that has provided 500,000 meals, 15,000 pieces of protective gear and about 2,500 soaps, sanitizers and handwashing units to people in need. Before joining Children’s Hope this year, Khemka was executive director at The Steve Fund, where she forged partnerships with universities to create more culturally sensitive campus environments. In addition to overseeing Children’s Hope, Khemka is a Forbes contributor.

She is developing a book series to help children build self-esteem and greater resilience.

The coronavirus pandemic has taken a human and economic toll, but it’s also benefited certain businesses. Count Capsule among them.

As Americans hunker down, they’ve become less inclined to venture out to brick-and-mortar pharmacies.

Capsule is an app-based pharmacy offering free, sameday delivery. It has attracted new customers and seen sales among existing customers rise because of Covid-19. Eric Kinariwala, a former investment analyst, launched Capsule in 2015 after a self-described miserable drugstore experience.

The company was already seeing robust growth before the pandemic. In 2018 its revenue and its customer count more than tripled. In all, the firm has raised more than $250 million in venture capital to fund its expansion.

RANDY KLEIN

MARIELLE KRESS

SETH LEDERMAN, MD

BENJAMINE LIU

THERESA MADALINE, MD

Chief executive officer Vesta Healthcare

Executive director NYC Care

Co-founder and chief executive officer TrialSpark

Health care epidemiologist Montefiore Health System

During the city’s Covid-19 outbreak, Vesta seized an opportunity to prove its value and make a difference. Led by veteran health care executive Randy Klein, the tech and clinical-services firm connects patients and caregivers to the rest of the care team through telehealth and other resources.

The startup recently entered into a partnership with JASA, a home-care agency, to support thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers. JASA is a nonprofit that serves more than 40,000 older adults. Vesta is giving its digital tools and clinical program, including a Covid-19-specific module, to JASA clients and their caregivers for free. The platform is designed to serve as an early warning system that helps prevent unnecessary hospitalizations. It addresses social isolation, among other issues.

Marielle Kress, a native New Yorker, returned home last year from Washington, D.C., to take a job that would allow her to give back to her hometown. Little did she know just how much her help would be needed. Kress has spent about a year managing the rollout of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $100 million care access program. NYC Care guarantees low- and no-cost care through NYC Health + Hospitals to New Yorkers who don’t qualify for or can’t afford health insurance. It has enrolled more than 25,000 people in a city that until recently was the epicenter of the Covid-19 crisis. Thousands more are expected to enroll in the program when it expands to Manhattan and Queens in September.

Cofounder, chief executive officer and chairman Tonix Pharmaceuticals

In the race to develop a novel coronavirus vaccine, publicly traded biopharma firm Tonix is collaborating with the nonprofit Southern Research of Alabama to develop a live, replicating-virus vaccine intended to confer long-term immunity.

The vaccine candidate is based on a virus that Dr. Seth Lederman thinks is closely related to the first smallpox vaccine developed by the pioneering English physician Edward Jenner. In July Tonix announced a research collaboration with Columbia University focused on studying the immune responses to Covid-19 in people who recovered from it or were asymptomatic.

The research collaboration will focus on T-cell and antibody responses to the virus at the cellular level. Lederman founded cancer-drug developer Targent Pharmaceuticals.

While doing graduate work as a Rhodes scholar, Benjamine Liu first noticed that the traditional process of designing and conducting clinical trials often creates bottlenecks.

That realization motivated him to cofound TrialSpark in 2013. The tech firm is shaking up the world of clinical trials and drug development, just in time to fight the coronavirus pandemic. TrialSpark partners with doctors to create trial sites within their practices, which the company says boosts participant recruitment rates and patient access to clinical trials. TrialSpark is part of an effort, supported by tech investor Sam Altman, to speed up Covid-19 research.

The project’s first study enrolled 500 patients just 10 days after its launch in July.

As a key player in Montefiore Health System’s response to Covid-19, Dr. Theresa Madaline helped manage a surge of patients and implemented protocols to protect staff from infection.

Madaline has been Montefiore’s trusted voice on Covid-19, acting as a media source and sharing critical public health messages. She has been on the front lines of outbreaks before. In 2019 she helped oversee Montefiore’s response to a nationwide measles outbreak. Her work on that front has guided other health care institutions. She’s also has driven improvements across Montefiore, a system that serves more than 3 million people in the Bronx and the Hudson Valley. Last year Modern Healthcare named her to its Top 25 Emerging Leaders list.

Telehealth accounted for 13% of medical claim lines in April compared with only 0.15% a year earlier, the nonprofit Fair Health found.

28 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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NYC HEALTH + HOSPITALS/ GOTHAM HEALTH BOARD OF DIRECTORS & GOTHAM HEALTH STAFF JOIN CRAIN’S IN RECOGNIZING

Congratulations

COVID-19 Isolation Hotel Implementation Team!

Your unprecedented work during the COVID-19 Pandemic resulted in the creation of safe spaces for hundreds of New Yorkers to safely separate GOTHAM HEALTH CEO from others in their households, thereby mitigating Nicole Jordan-Martin the spread of COVID-19 and potentially saving lives.

Executive Director and

MICHELLE LEWIS Chief Executive Officer

STAY CONNECTED. FOLLOW US.

communitycare.nyc

We salute Michelle for her visionary leadership WKDW HQDEOHV XV WR IXOƓ OO Gotham Health’s mission to provide all New Yorkers with access to high quality care regardless of the ability to pay or immigration status.

Laura Alves

Tinisha Beckles

Mary Grace Boyd

Ishmael Carter

Martin Castaneda

Michael Cosmi

Rafael Domínguez

Associate Executive Director Care Management

Director of Human Resources

Director of Nursing

Associate Executive Director Care Management

Associate Executive Director Operations

Director of Information Systems

Director of Marketing and Communications

Shewon Erie

Matthew Fay

Julia Galinski

Shazeda Khan

Hannah Loeffert

Alexandra Mercado

Associate Executive Director Clinical Services

Sr. Assistant Vice President Finance Administration

Assistant Director Human Resources

Director of Operations and Project Management

Associate Executive Director Care Management

Director of Operations and Project Management

Jennifer Melendez-Suarez

www.nychealthandhospitals.org Latoya O’Gere Marcy Pressman

Marjorie Momplaisir-Ellis Senior Director Facilities Management

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Associate Executive Director Chronic Disease and Performance Improvement

Deputy Executive Director Care Management

Associate Executive Director Chief Experience Officer

Ameer Robertson

Jared Shure

Yolanda Smith

Janet Wang

Associate Executive Director Care Management

Deputy Executive Director Chief Financial Officer

Deputy Executive Director Chief Nursing Officer

Director Care Management

8/4/20 12:57 PM

NYC HEALTH + HOSPITALS/ELMHURST EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT TEAM NYC Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst is in one of the city’s most diverse communities.

The hospital’s Emergency Department team consists of attending physicians, residents, nurses and physician assistants. While working at a facility in the heart of a community devastated by Covid-19, Elmhurst’s emergency team quickly ramped up operations to treat surges of critically ill patients.

In late February, Elmhurst began to prepare a coordinated response to the pandemic. Staff trained in the latest guidance on how to use personal protective equipment and effective medical treatments for Covid-19. They streamlined communication to improve workflows. By mid-March an unprecedented volume of patients flooded the department. Its staff regrouped into medical teams: oxygen teams and others for proning, transport and ventilator management.

Everyone worked together seamlessly to deliver care despite the difficult and harrowing circumstances.

The surge continued through mid-April, and the department became a hot zone serving critically ill Covid-19 patients. In response, the remarkable medical staff signed up for extra shifts, stayed for longer hours and worked tirelessly to care for the patients who needed them most. The staff displayed extraordinary resilience in response to the Covid-19 surge.

CONGRATULATIONS TO WESTMED CEO ANTHONY VICEROY Westmed is proud to congratulate Anthony Viceroy, honored as a Crain’s New York Business 2020 Notable in Healthcare recipient. His commitment to excellence and focus on safety has made it possible for Westmed to provide comprehensive care to patients of our community, even throughout these unprecedented times.

Learn more at westmedgroup.com

30 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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ANTHONY VICEROY

Chief Executive Officer Westmed Medical Group

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At Northwell Health, we’re dedicated to helping communities overcome challenges— A mission we’re proud to share with the honorees of Crain’s “Notable in Health Care” List.

Congratulations to our own Michael Dowling , President & CEO. Your fearless leadership has guided us through unprecedented times.

We also extend our heartfelt congratulations to:

Dr. David Battinelli Senior vice president and chief medical officer and

Dr. Ram Raju Senior vice president and community health investment officer By working together, we can truly overcome anything and create a brighter future for all.

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CAROLYN MAGILL

SAMIR MALIK

JOHN MARSHALL, MD

KONSTANTIN MEHL

PARVEZ MIR, MD

Chief executive officer Aetion

Executive vice president and general manager Genoa Telepsychiatry

Chair, emergency medicine Maimonides Medical Center

Co-founder and chief executive officer Kaia Health

Director of pulmonary and critical care Wyckoff Heights Medical Center

Getting physical therapy for chronic back pain can be, well, a pain. Now, there’s an app for that.

Konstantin Mehl, a self-described serial entrepreneur, co-founded Kaia Health, a digital therapeutic company, in 2016 after years of struggling to manage chronic back pain. The firm’s appbased, mindbody therapies are used to treat back pain, knee and hip osteoarthritis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The app works with a smartphone camera to give users audio feedback as they perform exercises. The Brooklyn company has raised $50 million in venture capital since its launch. With many medical offices temporarily closed as a result of Covid-19, Kaia Health has seen an uptick in demand for digital-health services, particularly among high-risk COPD patients.

New York state’s first reported Covid-19 death took place at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, where Dr. Parvez Mir has practiced for more than two decades. The 350-bed hospital on the border of Brooklyn and Queens would eventually treat more than 2,000 Covid-19 patients. Hundreds died, as did staff. Many refused to come to work, but not Mir, who at one point worked for six weeks without a day off. With staff in short supply, he recruited a pulmonologist from Arkansas.

He turned to the blogs of doctors abroad for insight into treating Covid-19. As the crisis unfolded, Mir told Time magazine that caring for Covid-19 patients is a way to practice living his Muslim faith.

As CEO of Aetion, Carolyn Magill delivers real-world analytics and evidence needed to inform critical health care decisions—which treatments work best, for whom and when. The company’s mission is even more urgent in the Covid-19 era.

Aetion landed a researchcollaboration agreement in May with the Food and Drug Administration to use real-world data to advance the understanding of Covid-19 and the response to the disease. The research supports FDA efforts to understand the natural history of the disease and diagnostic and treatment patterns.

Real-time data can include medical and pharmacy claims, lab test results and electronic medical record information. Magill’s 20 years of leadership experience in health care has focused on the shift from fee-for-service to valuebased care.

Samir Malik has spent much of his career breaking down barriers to mental health care. In 2011 he co-founded 1DocWay, a telepsychiatry network operator.

Telepsychiatry has helped alleviate the imbalance between growing demand for mental health services and the number of mental health professionals.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, many community mental health centers are relying heavily on telemedicine. Malik’s 1DocWay was acquired by Genoa Healthcare in 2015 and became its telepsychiatry platform. In 2018 UnitedHealth Group acquired Genoa Healthcare for some $2.5 billion. Under Malik, Genoa Telepsychiatry has become a leader in its field. In the past year, the platform has provided 250,000 visits, connecting 330 providers to behavioral health centers in more than 30 states.

Long before the pandemic, Dr. John Marshall had triaged more than a few disaster victims.

During his residency in emergency medicine, he treated victims of the Columbine High School shooting. While serving in the Air Force, he tended to military personnel in war-torn Afghanistan. But New York’s Covid-19 outbreak was like nothing he had ever seen.

Borough Park, home to the 711-bed Maimonides Medical center, was swamped with cases.

Marshall led the hospital’s emergency management team through uncharted waters.

Drawing on the experiences of doctors in Italy and elsewhere, he and his team created best practices in real time. During the height of the outbreak, he shared his team’s findings on the use of ventilators with a U.S. Senate subcommittee.

Congratulations, Alex!

We are proud to congratulate Alexander Pollak, CEO, on being named among Crain’s Notable Figures in Healthcare.

Thank you for your tireless efforts to provide the best-in-class medical care to the events industy, and for using your experience of on-site rst-aid to assist various industries returning to work in a post-COVID-19 world, including generous donations of PPE for healthca healthcare workers during the pandemic.

MEDICAL SERVICES ParaDocs Worldwide Inc. is the industry leader in providing on-site and on-demand medical services to stadiums, music festivals, construction-sites, lm and production, and private venues throughout the world. Our team of medical professionals are carefully selected for their professionalism, discretion, and clinical excellence. We offer on-site physicians, registered nurses, paramedics, emergency medical technicians and lifeguards for projects of all types and sizes. ParaDocs now offers fever screenings, health and wellness checks, and COVID compliance officers for all industries.

www.paradocsworldwide.com 32 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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We’re proud to have Alan Murray recognized for his leadership during the COVID-19 crisis as one of Crain’s Notable in Health Care.

Congratulations to all of this year’s honorees.

“At Empire, our goal is to materially and measurably improve the health of all New Yorkers. We strive to have an impact on their total health and wellbeing and on their daily lives.”

Alan J. Murray President and CEO Empire BlueCross BlueShield

© 2020 Empire. Services provided by Empire HealthChoice HMO, Inc. and/or Empire HealthChoice Assurance, Inc., independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Serving residents and businesses in the 28 eastern and southeastern counties of New York State.

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NYC HEALTH + HOSPITALS/COMMUNITY CARE COVID-19 ISOLATION HOTEL IMPLEMENTATION TEAM The NYC Health + Hospitals/Community Care Covid-19 Isolation Hotel Implementation Team designed and operates a Covid-19 Isolation Hotel Program. At the height of the Covid-19 surge, within two weeks this team delivered two isolation hotels with a combined 501 rooms, and clinical and social support. It had another 595 hotel rooms ready to go at two additional hotels, if needed. By transforming 1,096 hotel rooms into safe isolation spaces, the team created places for patients discharged from inpatient and emergency settings at various New York City health systems. They also housed people referred from the Department for Homeless Services; NYC Emergency Management; the Covid-19 Hotline run by Health + Hospitals; Covid-19 testing sites; and community-based organizations and health care providers. The program also serves as the flagship Isolation Hotel Program for the city’s Test and Trace initiative. This innovative program does far more than house New Yorkers in isolation.

Staff handle intake referrals and arrange for transportation for referred guests.

A team of registered nurses conducts clinical record reviews and screens people before they’re transferred to the hotel. The program team also arranged for an onsite administrator, security, wellness coordination, nursing and nursing support, social work, onsite and remote physician coverage, and onsite care coordination and case management. And unlike regular hotels, these rooms aren’t divided into categories like luxury and standard. Patients (guests) are assigned to floors based on their Covid-19 status and underlying medical and behavioral health conditions. The sickest ones need a higher level of clinical monitoring and support during their hotel stay.

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In recognition of the entire team at Maimonides who continue to provide safe and extraordinary care to the communities we serve.

Extraordinary times.

Extraordinary care.

Don’t put your health on hold.

Maimonides is rated among the Top 10 hospitals in the nation for clinical excellence* and we’ve been successfully treating strokes, heart attacks, cancer, damaged joints and pediatric illnesses non-stop.

CALL 888-MMC-DOCS (888-662-3627)

Our expert physicians and care teams are right here in Brooklyn and ready to help with rigorous safety measures and safe care pathways for you and your family.

MAIMONIDESMED.ORG

or visit

*cms.gov 2018 & 2019

Virtual visits by phone or video are now available at many of our physician practices.

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CHERYL MOORE

MARK MULLIGAN, MD

ALAN MURRAY

President and COO New York Genome Center

Director, division of infectious diseases and immunology and the Vaccine Center NYU Langone Health

President and chief executive officer Empire BlueCross BlueShield

Cheryl Moore has been a driving force behind the New York Genome Center’s decision to take on the coronavirus pandemic.

Together with Chief Executive Officer Tom Maniatis, she sets the strategic direction of the nonprofit research institution, which seeks to better understand the genetic basis of cancer and other diseases. Earlier this year the center expanded its research to include the study of the genomics underlying the novel coronavirus and Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Its Covid-19 Genomics Research Network, a consortium of 250 scientists and clinicians, is seeking answers to such critical questions as how the coronavirus spreads, and why some infected people have only mild symptoms and others become critically ill.

Dr. Mark Mulligan, a physicianscientist who has studied some of the world’s deadliest viruses, has expanded his focus to the novel coronavirus.

Mulligan leads NYU Langone’s Vaccine Center, which earlier this year was one of the first U.S. centers to enroll patients in a clinical trial of Covid-19 vaccine candidates developed by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech. The lead vaccine candidate to emerge from the trial has now entered its final phase of study. That research is taking place at NYU Langone’s Vaccine Center and more than 100 other sites worldwide. NYU Langone was selected for the trial partly because of the expertise of Mulligan, whose infectiousdisease research programs have produced vaccine candidates for HIV and other viruses.

Alan Murray joined Empire BlueCross BlueShield in 2018 and this year led New York’s largest health insurer through the Covid-19 outbreak. With the pandemic greatly restricting patients’ ability to see their doctors, Murray has worked to expand access to telemedicine for Empire’s roughly 4 million members. Empire, for instance, recently reached an agreement with CityMD to give members access to the urgent care provider’s doctors in New York through LiveHealth Online, Empire’s telemedicine platform. Before joining Empire, Murray led Northwell Health’s CareConnect, the state’s first provider-owned commercial insurance plan. Murray, a native of Scotland and a former British Merchant Navy officer, has held senior roles in the New York area at United Healthcare and Anthem.

MONSIGNOR GREGORY MUSTACIUOLO

FLORIAN OTTO, MD

Chief executive officer Mother Cabrini Health Foundation

Co-founder and chief executive officer Cedar

Monsignor Gregory Mustaciuolo is the first CEO of the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation. The mammoth organization launched in 2018 from the proceeds of the Roman Catholic Church’s nearly $3.8 billion sale of its nonprofit health plan, Fidelis Care, to publicly traded Centene Corp.

The $3.2 billion foundation, among the largest in the country, focuses on increasing access to health care in underserved communities across New York state. In early March the foundation announced inaugural grants of nearly $150 million to fund more than 500 programs and initiatives that work to improve the health and quality of life for low-income and underserved communities. That same month, the foundation announced an additional $50 million in emergency funding to support nonprofits addressing the health needs of New Yorkers affected by Covid-19.

Florian Otto, an entrepreneur and former physician, cofounded Cedar in 2016 after what he describes as a terrible medical billing experience.

The company helps health care providers bring greater convenience, transparency and personalization to medical billing, ideally resulting in higher collection rates and greater patient satisfaction. Cedar now serves some of the city’s largest providers. In June it announced $102 million in funding, bringing total capital raised to $157 million. It plans to use the money to attract new clients and expand its product beyond billing and collection to new areas, such as appointment reminders and digital-registration forms. That strategy will move Cedar beyond patient billing to what Otto calls a “comprehensive health care consumer engagement platform.”

Congratulations to Claire Pomeroy, MD, MBA President of the Lasker Foundation

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PHILIP OZUAH, MD

LORENZO PALADINO, MD

ARTEM PETAKOV

ALEXANDER POLLAK

DAVID V. POMERANZ

President and chief executive officer Montefiore Medicine

Associate professor, emergency medicine SUNY Downstate and Kings County Medical Center

Cofounder and president Noom

Chief executive officer ParaDocs Worldwide Inc.

Artem Petakov’s weight-loss app Noom is almost a household name. But it wasn’t an overnight success. Petakov, who discovered his passion for programming at age 9, cofounded Noom with his best friend, Saeju Jeong, in 2008. Petakov said the two made every startup mistake imaginable, spent years refining Noom and, more than once, nearly ran out of money. In 2016 they found the right market fit for the app. Last year Noom generated $237 million in revenue (the bulk of it from users of the app), up from $61 million in 2018 and $12 million in 2017.

More people may turn to Noom this year to fight the weight gain so common it’s been dubbed the “Quarantine 15.”

Alexander Pollak is no stranger to the pivot. Early in his career, he left a high-paying finance job to work in medicine. The entrepreneur and paramedic launched ParaDocs in 2011, and it soon became a leading provider of on-site medical treatment at music festivals, among other big events. When the Covid-19 pandemic struck New York, he turned his company on a dime.

Rather than staffing big events, the firm’s paramedics and emergency medical technicians staffed ambulances. Some of its doctors worked in hospitals. ParaDocs handled employee health screenings to help keep essential businesses and services open.

Today ParaDocs is running testing sites, health screenings and temperature checks at construction sites and office buildings. In addition, it provides on-site medical care and Covid-19 compliance work for film productions and fashion shows.

Chief operating officer Hebrew Home at Riverdale by RiverSpring Health

Dr. Philip Ozuah, who joined Montefiore Medicine as a pediatric intern and resident in 1989, succeeded Montefiore’s retired leader, Dr. Steven Safyer, in November 2019. Ozuah has held a number of leadership positions at Montefiore Medicine, which includes the Montefiore Health System and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Ozuah is credited with expanding access for underserved communities, recruiting top talent and fostering medical education innovation, among other achievements. He has used his platform during the pandemic to highlight health care inequities and Montefiore’s efforts to make a difference. “I find it maddening that individuals who live within blocks of my hospital are made more vulnerable by their physical and social environments,” he wrote in a recent editorial.

Dr. Lorenzo Paladino has served on the front lines of earthquakes and other disasters abroad. This year he found himself on the front lines of a crisis in his hometown.

Paladino’s role in the crisis wasn’t limited to caring for Covid-19 patients.

Because of his earlier research on ventilators, he was part of a White House task force that established protocols for how to put multiple patients on ventilators designed for single-patient use. New York was facing the grim prospect of running out of the machines, leading hospitals to contemplate such drastic measures. In addition, Paladino is a flight surgeon in the New York Air National Guard’s 106th Rescue Wing.

Nursing home residents have been devastated by Covid-19, as have the workers who care for them. At Hebrew Home at Riverdale in the Bronx, keeping workers and residents safe and emotionally grounded while complying with government mandates falls to David Pomeranz.

Since May, the Hebrew Home has been testing its 1,000 employees for Covid-19 every week at an estimated cost of $600,000 a month. To tackle that task, Hebrew Home repurposed its own nursing staff, secured testing supplies and partnered with New York-Presbyterian to expedite the test processing. Pomeranz made headlines by championing a new program that uses a drive-in movie model to allow residents to visit with family from a safe distance.

Visitors stay in their parked cars and communicate through a wireless speaker with loved ones visible in an enclosed vestibule.

Congratulations to

Allison Sesso EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

on being named a 2020 notable in healthcare and for championing RIP Medical Debt’s growth!

NEWS FROM RIP

In July, RIP received a favorable opinion from the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health & Human Services.

RIP Medical Debt empowers donors to forgive billions in oppressive medical debt at pennies on the dollar.

Many hospitals & physicians’ groups can now donate or sell medical debt, belonging to those least likely to pay or most burdened, directly to RIP Medical Debt.

RIPMedicalDebt.org

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Keeping Brooklyn Healthy

The Brooklyn Hospital Center congratulates our very own

Gary G. Terrinoni

President and Chief Executive Officer

James Gasperino, MD, PhD, MPH, DABT

Chair, Medicine; VP, Critical Care, Perioperative and Hospital Medicine; Associate Chief Medical Officer

for their recognition in Crain’s 2020 Notable in Health Care

121 DeKalb Avenue • Brooklyn, NY 11201 718.250.8000 • www.tbh.org

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NEW YORK-PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL/RYAN F. LARKIN FIELD HOSPITAL Team members: Dr. Laureen Hill, senior vice president and CEO of New York Presbyterian/Columbia Medical Center; Paul Dunphey, senior vice president and COO of NYP Allen Hospital & Ambulatory Care; Joseph Ienuso, group senior vice president, facilities and real estate, administration; and Noah Ginsberg, director, laboratory support services, Cl Lab Services administration; and Kate Kaley, administrative director of oncology

As the pandemic tore through the New York area in April, a group of New York-Presbyterian Hospital professionals came together to conceive, build and operate the Ryan F. Larkin Field Hospital, which was dedicated to Covid-19 patients. Kate Kaley led an effort marked by a spirit of collaboration and reliance on an underutilized pool of former military medical and support professionals. These veterans helped care for about 140 patients.

Remarkably, none of these patients died, and just six required transfer for more intensive care. The other patients were discharged after recovery from the worst of their illness.

Patient-centered, compassionate care forged a sense of unity between caregivers and patients from medically-underserved neighborhoods. The field hospital was home to innumerable scenes of kindness: caregivers giving priority to shampooing patients who hadn’t had hair care for weeks, and clinicians who left the hospital on foot to locate parish priests, holding impromptu pastoral sessions through smartphones. Tremendous ingenuity, expertise, creativity and compassion made the field hospital far more than a place of healing during the dark days of Covid-19.

C O N G R AT U L AT I O N S

T O

Valerie Vermiglio-Kohn and all of this year’s Notables in Healthcare

Valerie, your commitment to our patients and staff is outstanding. Your transformational leadership and positivity have inspired our nursing team and all of Burke’s employees.

You brighten our days during even the most challenging times, and your commitment to your team, and to Burke, knows no bounds.

785 MAMARONECK AVENUE | WHITE PLAINS, NY 10605 | WWW.BURKE.ORG

Inpatient Programs (914) 597-2519

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Outpatient Therapy (914) 597-2200

Outpatient Physicians (914) 597-2332

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CONGRATULATIONS to our Hackensack Meridian Health physicians recognized as part of Crain’s New York Business 2020 Notable in Healthcare.

Dr. Thomas and Dr. Donato truly exemplify a level of leadership that fully embodies Hackensack Meridian Health’s mission to transform health care and serve as leaders of positive change.

Florian P. Thomas, M.D., MA, Ph.D., MS Chair of the Department of Neurology and the Neuroscience Institute, Hackensack University Medical Center and Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine

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Michele Donato, M.D., FACP, CPE Chief of Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, John Theurer Cancer Center, part of Hackensack University Medical Center

7/30/20 1:22 PM

CLAIRE POMEROY, MD

JULIA RAMIREZ

RAM RAJU, MD

KENNETH RASKE

ZACHARIAH REITANO

President Lasker Foundation

Community outreach manager Immigrant Health and Cancer Disparities Service Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Former senior vice president and community health investment officer Northwell Health

President Greater New York Hospital Association

Cofounder and chief executive officer Ro

The pandemic has exacerbated health care disparities. For Julia Ramirez, these disparities have been the heart of her career.

Ramirez runs Memorial Sloan Kettering programs, including a hospital-based food pantry initiative, that help eliminate disparities in health and cancer treatment among underserved patients. Her Food to Overcome Outcomes Disparities program is a lifeline for many New Yorkers. The Covid-19 crisis worsened food insecurity and made many cancer patients fearful of leaving their homes. Ramirez responded by rolling out a delivery service. She enlisted the help of redeployed MSK jitney drivers, food-delivery companies and even laid-off cabdrivers. In recent months the Food program has delivered nearly 20,000 meals to more than 400 cancer patients.

The pandemic has created a sense of greater urgency when it comes to tackling health care disparities. But Dr. Ram Raju has long been on the front lines of the fight for greater equity. Raju spent the past several years working to better understand the needs of Northwell’s most-vulnerable communities and finding ways to meet those needs.

Before joining Northwell, he was the president and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, the country’s largest public health system and a major safety-net provider. He was tapped for the position at Northwell, New York’s largest health care provider, because of his leadership experience, dedication to caring for vulnerable communities and deep understanding of the state’s health care system. Raju recently retired.

As health care workers toiled on the front lines of the city’s Covid-19 outbreak, Kenneth Raske and his colleagues at the Greater New York Hospital Association worked behind the scenes to juggle hospitals’ response to the crisis and shore up their finances. As president of the trade group since 1984, Raske is the direct liaison between hospitals and state officials. He recently co-led a group to oversee hospital efforts to expand their capacity by thousands of beds in response to an order by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

He oversaw efforts to help hospitals deal with huge financial hits because of higher labor and equipment costs and suspended elective procedures. The association’s aggressive lobbying campaign helped hospitals land $5 billion in federal Covid-19 funding in May.

Motivated by his own health care struggles, Zachariah Reitano, a former entrepreneur-in-residence at venture capital firm Prehype, cofounded the online pharmacy and telemedicine startup Ro in 2017. Among the most well-capitalized firms in the health-tech sector, Ro has since raised $376 million in funding. It is among the companies that have recently taken a strong public stand in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. In early June, Ro posted a Twitter statement in support of Black Lives Matter that told followers “if you disagree with this statement or feel it’s in any way controversial, don’t use our services and unfollow us.”

Dr. Claire Pomeroy, an expert in infectious diseases, is a longtime public health advocate, with a focus on patients with HIV and AIDS. As head of the Lasker Foundation since 2013, Pomeroy is responsible for advancing the group’s mission to “improve health by accelerating support for medical research through recognition of research excellence, education and advocacy.” She passionately supports continued investment in medical research and has an interest in health care policy and the importance of the social determinants of health.

Throughout the pandemic, Pomeroy has served as a media source. She has framed the crisis as an opportunity to gain medical research insight to help form a response to the pandemic and prepare society for future outbreaks of disease.

T:10.25"

Recognizing a true leader.

Thank you for your incredible leadership during this challenging time.

• Created the national model for COVID Recovery

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David V. Pomeranz COO, Hebrew Home at Riverdale

in long-term care • Provided exemplary communication, transparency and thorough reporting • Established the first Family Drive-In visits to reunite families and residents safely • Built a state-of-the-art on-campus COVID Staff Testing Center • Secured supplies of PPE to carry us through all future challenges • Kept families and residents informed through daily updates and weekly family information webinars • Provided superior, high quality care with strong safety protocols

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Crains Half Page

Job Info

Approvals

8/6/20 3:34 PM

A CELEBRATION OF CRAIN’S

40 UNDER 40 & 20 IN THEIR 20S Tuesday, Sept. 22 4-5 p.m. | Virtual Event

FOR THE FIRST TIME!

Crain’s New York Business will recognize Crain’s 40 under 40 and 20 in their 20s in a joint, virtual celebration Join us as we celebrate and learn from some of New York’s greatest rising stars. As an added bonus, keynote speaker and 40s honoree Natasha Holiday will speak about what mentoring has meant to her since the coronavirus outbreak. Following the keynote address, stick around for a panel discussion with some of Crain’s 20s honorees as they explain how crucial mentoring has become during the health crisis.

RESERVE YOUR COMPLIMENTARY SEAT TODAY! CrainsNewYork.com/40sand20s Event Questions: crainsevents@crainsnewyork.com Sponsorship Opportunities: Lisa Rudy • lrudy@crain.com

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DARA RICHARDSON-HERON, MD

NAVARRA RODRIGUEZ, MD

RAMON RODRIGUEZ

KATE RYDER

DAVID SANDMAN

BA

Chief patient officer Pfizer Inc.

President and chief medical officer AdvantageCare Physicians

President and chief executive officer Wyckoff Heights Medical Center

Founder and chief executive officer Maven

President and chief executive officer New York State Health Foundation

Chie City

Dr. Dara Richardson-Heron has dedicated her career to reducing health care disparities and improving patient outcomes. As chief patient officer, Richardson-Heron leads Pfizer’s efforts to advance patient-focused programs and platforms.

Before joining Pfizer in February, she was the chief engagement officer and scientific executive for the National Institutes of Health’s All of Us research program. With the goal of improving the prevention and treatment of diseases, she led outreach efforts from 2017 to this year to enroll and retain more than a million volunteers to share their health data. Her other leadership roles include CEO of YWCA USA, CEO of the Greater New York City Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure and national chief medical officer for the United Cerebral Palsy Association.

Under Dr. Navarra Rodriguez’s guidance, AdvantageCare Physicians has helped bring New York’s once-skyrocketing Covid-19 infection rate under control.

Rodriguez, who has been in her position since 2016, oversees medical leadership and health improvement activities at AdvantageCare, one of the largest primary and specialty care practices in the metropolitan area. In May she brokered partnerships with New York City and the state that led to the opening of more than 20 Covid-19 testing sites at the network’s community-based medical offices in low-income areas. In addition to ramping up the city’s Covid-19 testing in hard-hit neighborhoods, AdvantageCare helped alleviate the strain on hospitals by offering telehealth services and patient referrals to Cityblock and EmblemHealth Neighborhood Care, among other partners.

If New York had a ground zero for the pandemic, it might be Wyckoff Heights Medical Center.

The community hospital had the state’s first reported Covid-19 death and went on to treat 2,000 Covid-19 patients. Ramon Rodriguez led the overburdened hospital through the crisis.

While other hospital executives scrambled for protective gear and ventilators, Wyckoff was mostly short on staff. Out of fear and exhaustion, some employees stopped showing up.

Many workers became infected.

Today Rodriguez is working to put Wyckoff—which, like other hospitals, saw revenues decline as a result of the outbreak— back on firm financial footing.

Rodriguez joined Wyckoff in 2011 with a promise to improve the hospital’s patient care and fiscal stability.

After stints in venture capital and business journalism, Kate Ryder became an entrepreneur in 2014 with a mission to transform health care for women and their families. Ryder founded Maven, which offers virtual care and health services in fertility, maternity care and pediatrics, among other areas. Maven aims to help employers and health plans achieve improved maternal outcomes and lower costs while attracting and retaining more working parents.

The company has raised more than $87 million from investors, among them Sequoia Capital, Oak HC/FT and Icon Ventures.

Before founding Maven, Ryder wrote for The Economist from Southeast Asia, New York and London, and for the New Yorker.

In 2009, she helped the former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson write his memoirs about the financial crisis.

David Sandman, a public-health thought leader, has overseen the New York State Health Foundation since 2016. The private foundation works to improve the health of New Yorkers, especially its most vulnerable residents. Earlier this year it committed $5 million to support the Covid-19 response and relief efforts in New York state.

Since 2006, the foundation has invested more than $150 million in health care initiatives. It has helped millions of New Yorkers gain health insurance with its support of the Affordable Care Act and the Essential Plan, an optional benefit for insuring lower-income people ineligible for Medicaid.

Sandman was drawn to the field of public health during the AIDS/ HIV crisis of the 1980s and early 1990s. His career in health care has been “bookended” by AIDS/HIV and Covid-19.

Dr. B path chie will play mas

hos hom tem out 100 The rein up i and cred for k staff

The Holy Name Medical Center Family proudly congratulates our esteemed colleague and health care hero

Benjamin De La Rosa, MD Infectious Diseases Specialist

for recognition in Crain’s New York Business Notable in Health Care for 2020 and salutes all the distinguished honorees

THIS PLACE IS DIFFERENT

718 Teaneck Road, Teaneck, NJ 07666 201-833-3000 holyname.org

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ThisPlaceIsDifferent.org

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NOT

tion

h e ion ion

ble lier

n in

Act onal me

d of

BARBARA SAMPSON

CHARLES SCHLEIEN, MD

TALYA SCHWARTZ, MD

CHANAKA SENEVIRATNE

ALLISON SESSO

Chief medical examiner City of New York

Senior vice president of Cohen Children’s Medical Center & Pediatric Services Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell Health

President and chief executive officer MetroPlusHealth

Pulmonologist and critical care specialist Maimonides Medical Center

Executive director RIP Medical Debt

MetroPlusHealth, owned by NYC Health + Hospitals Corp., has ranked among the top insurers in the state for quality under the leadership of CEO Talya Schwartz.

Schwartz, who rose to the top post in May 2019, has led technology solutions that enhance access to health care and pertinent health information for its more than 500,000 members. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Schwartz rapidly initiated outreach and support efforts to serve the plan’s membership. Previously she was MetroPlusHealth’s chief medical officer, leading the medical management division. In that role, she transformed the care management program into a holistic, field-based program that tackles social determinants of health with a special focus on housing the homeless.

Dr. Chanaka Seneviratne, or “Dr. Sen” as colleagues and house staff affectionately call him, “reminds you of those lofty reasons you went to medical school but somehow forgot in the reality that medicine is today,” a former student wrote.

Senevirantne’s “profound sense of dedication to patients” has inspired generations of critical care fellows to whom he remains a mentor long after their graduation. Seneviratne, extremely knowledgeable and skilled, trains young doctors in the intensive care unit to embrace “a lifelong enthusiasm for learning and an everlasting empathy for your patient,” his former student added. “Never one to push for personal accolades, he is most recognized and valued by the people who ultimately matter most: his patients and his students.

Dr. Barbara Sampson, a forensic pathologist, is the city’s first female chief medical examiner. She also will go down in history as a pivotal player in its response to its worst mass casualty since the 1918 flu pandemic.

Borrowing from its 9/11 playbook, her office mounted a Herculean effort to deal with the surge of Covid-19 deaths that overwhelmed hospital morgues and funeral homes. Her office set up four temporary morgue sites throughout the city and sent more than 100 refrigerated trucks to hospitals.

The office, with National Guard reinforcement, dramatically scaled up its ability to investigate deaths and respond to at-home deaths. It credits stringent safety measures for keeping infections among its staff to a small number.

y has V

N

Dr. Charles Schleien has experienced the coronavirus pandemic from two sides: as a doctor on the front lines and as a Covid-19 patient. While helping to plan Northwell Health’s response to the pandemic, Schleien was diagnosed with Covid-19 and struggled for 12 days at home before he was admitted to North Shore University Hospital. Schleien recovered and returned to his pivotal role at Cohen Children’s Medical Center, part of Northwell Health, and in April he chronicled the harrowing health experience in an op-ed for The New York Times. The pediatric hospital has been a leader in treating children with Covid-19 and helped identify a potentially severe inflammatory syndrome linked to the disease.

RIP Medical Debt takes aim at the nation’s medical debt crisis, which is expected to worsen because of the coronoavirus’s toll on the nation’s health and the economy. The nonprofit raises money to buy medical debt at a steep discount in bundled portfolios for pennies on the dollar. It reports it has abolished $2 billion in debt so far for 1.5 million low-income families.

Under Allison Sesso, who joined RIP Medical Debt in January, the nonprofit recently launched a Helping Covid Heroes Fund that pays down medical debt owed by front-line health care workers, emergency responders and service workers hurt by the recession. The fund has wiped out more than $100 million in debt.

Dr. Stracher and Dr. Sharma have been instrumental in providing leadership in the community and transforming care in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Adam Reed Stracher, MD

We are so proud of the work these innovators have done to advance medicine and ensure the best care for all.

Chief Medical Officer and Director of Primary Care, Weill Cornell Medicine

Rahul Sharma, MD, MBA, FACEP Professor and Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine

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RAHUL SHARMA, MD

PETER SHEARER, MD

ANTHONY SHIH, MD

CRAIG SPENCER, MD

ADAM REED STRACHER, MD

Professor and chairman, department of emergency medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine Emergency physician-in-chief, New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center Dr. Rahul Sharma saw the promise of telemedicine long before the novel coronavirus fueled a surge in demand for health care delivered digitally.

In the past four years, he has launched several telemedicine programs at Weill Cornell Medicine, including an initiative that allows patients whose conditions aren’t life threatening to visit virtually with an emergency-medicine doctor. By targeting patients with minor conditions who are already in the emergency department, the program has significantly reduced wait times while maintaining patient safety and satisfaction. Recognizing the importance of teaching virtual care skills to physicians and medical students, Sharma launched a center within the emergency department that has trained hundreds of practitioners.

Chief medical officer and vice president of medical staff Mount Sinai Brooklyn

President United Hospital Fund

Director, global health in emergency medicine New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center

Chief medical officer, director of primary care division Weill Cornell Medicine

Dr. Peter Shearer has been a leader in emergency medicine in the city for two decades. Since 2018 he has been chief medical officer at Mount Sinai Brooklyn, which treated many Covid-19 patients.

Although most recovered, the hospital saw so many deaths that it brought in a cooler truck in case its small morgues reached capacity. Many of its staff grew ill during the outbreak, and Shearer worries about the pandemic’s impact on the mental health of front-line workers. Throughout this experience, Shearer has bravely served the hospital and its community. He led his team to quickly triage, treat and stabilize emergency department patients.

If needed, his team facilitated safe transfer of patients to Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

Since Dr. Anthony Shih took the helm of the United Hospital Fund in 2017, he has taken the nonprofit in new directions. UHF focuses on improving access to quality, affordable care for all New Yorkers.

Passionate about improving health care for the underserved, Shih built clinical and community partnerships and put a greater emphasis on the welfare of children and on diversity, equity and inclusion. Under Shih, for example, UHF has brought national attention to children affected by the opioid crisis. In May he was appointed to one of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s councils working on a post-pandemic recovery plan. In addition, Shih is on a mayoral committee that’s focused on building a more resilient and just city.

Dr. Craig Spencer was prepared for his time on the front lines of the city’s Covid-19 outbreak in more ways than one. In 2014 he became the first person in the city to be diagnosed with Ebola, a disease he contracted while caring for Ebola patients in Guinea as a Doctors Without Borders volunteer. Even when the U.S. had just a handful of diagnosed coronavirus infections, he was among the first public health experts to sound an alarm about the country’s lack of preparedness for a pandemic.

Spencer, a board member of Doctors Without Borders, now divides his time between providing clinical care in New York and working internationally in public health.

Dr. Adam Stracher was a driving force behind Weill Cornell Medicine’s early adoption of telehealth. When the Covid-19 outbreak struck the city, Weill Cornell Medicine was able to quickly scale up its capacity to offer primary care through digital tools.

Through its expanded telehealth platform, Weill Cornell Medicine offered uninterrupted care to patients with chronic conditions and those managing Covid-19 at home, which, in turn, reduced the strain on hospitals. Weill Cornell Medicine’s digital transformation has led to a more patient-friendly and safer experience during the pandemic.

Stracher, an internal medicine physician with a specialty in infectious diseases, has said that telemedicine will continue to play a big role at Weill Cornell and other health care institutions even after the pandemic ends.

The city has 544,458 front-line health care workers; 74% of them are women.

United States Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2014-2018 (5-Year Estimates)

JOIN THE ELITE RANKS OF

The Coalition for Behavioral Health Congratulates

Amy Dorin President and CEO

Every year, Crain's New York Business features 50 of the city's most innovative and fastest growing companies. This elite group includes successful New York entrepreneurs, flourishing start-ups and accelerated private and publicly held businesses who have exhibited winning strategies and most importantly, astronomical revenue growth.

Ready to join the ranks of New Yorkʼs fastest growing companies?

Submit at http://crainsnewyork.com/fast50nominate Nominations due: September 25

for being a 2020 Notable in Health Care and for her extraordinary leadership to the behavioral health sector by helping agencies to continue providing critical and highquality services to clients during unprecedented times.

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Theresa Madaline, MD Healthcare Epidemiologist Montefiore Health System

Montefiore-Einstein Congratulates T heresa Madaline, MD

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On her inclusion in Crain’s 2020 Notable in Health Care, for her innovative leadership in infection control and prevention in every healthcare setting and community.

8/5/20 3:42 PM

RAMON TALLAJ, MD

ALEX TANG

GARY TERRINONI

FLORIAN THOMAS, MD

NANCY THORNBERRY

VA

Cofounder and chairman Somos Community Care

Clinical director Coalition of Asian-American IPA

Alex Tang directs the clinical operations of the Coalition of Asian-American IPA, an independent practice association of more than 1,000 providers in 70 health care specialties. He spearheaded the network’s rollout of mobile Covid-19 testing sites in several low-income communities during the city’s outbreak. More than 1,500 free tests were administered at the sites, which followed safety protocols similar to those used in South Korea to reduce the risk of accidental infection at testing facilities. Tang, a licensed physician assistant with extensive clinical experience, led a team of physician assistants to launch the sites in Lower Manhattan, Sunset Park in Brooklyn, and Elmhurst and Flushing, Queens, all neighborhoods with large Asian populations.

Chair, department of neurology and the Neuroscience Institute Hackensack University Medical Center and Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine

Chief executive officer Kallyope

Dr. Ramon Tallaj oversees a network of more than 2,500 primary care doctors who care for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in underserved communities across the city. Tallaj, a native of the Dominican Republic, has led health care missions to the Caribbean, including a delegation of Somos doctors who cared for victims of Hurricane Maria in remote areas of Puerto Rico.

Since the start of the pandemic, Tallaj has focused on ensuring equitable access to care, Covid-19 testing, and resources for the city’s minority and immigrant communities. In June, for instance, Somos announced a partnership with Community Organized Relief Effort, the emergency-relief nonprofit cofounded by actor Sean Penn, to open five testing sites in marginalized communities.

President and chief executive officer Brooklyn Hospital Center

Vic offi Bur

The Brooklyn Hospital Center is the borough’s oldest hospital. This year it also became known as an epicenter of the city’s Covid-19 outbreak. The safety-net hospital captured national attention for the valiant fight it mounted under Gary Terrinoni, who has led the hospital since 2015. Terrinoni has worked to build a culture of inclusion, which served the hospital well during its darkest hour. Many nurses and other staff members fell ill, but the hospital redeployed workers to keep up with the surge of Covid-19 patients. Some employees even volunteered for front-line service.

The hospital also marked some happy milestones this year. It opened a state-of-the-art physicians pavilion, a Terrinoni initiative, and celebrated its 175th anniversary.

Though physicians first classified Covid-19 as a respiratory illness, they soon recognized a range of symptoms associated with the disease, from kidney failure to altered smell. Dr. Florian Thomas, a neurologist and researcher, is working to understand how Covid-19 can affect the nervous system. He is in an ideal position to undertake the research, which entails documenting neurological complaints from hospital patients and reviewing records of discharged patients. Hackensack Meridian Health has treated thousands of Covid-19 patients, more than any other health system in New Jersey. Thomas notes that Covid-19 can damage the heart muscle and lead to congestive heart failure, which can bring on irregular heartbeats that trigger strokes. Covid-19 can cause inflammation that can make the blood clot more quickly.

In 2016 Nancy Thornberry got in on the ground floor of a Manhattan biotech startup that seeks to develop drugs to treat diseases linked to the gut-brain axis.

Defects in the gut-brain axis—a two-way communication highway between the stomach and the central nervous system—have been linked to obesity, diabetes, gastrointestinal disorders, Parkinson’s and other diseases. Under Thornberry, a 30-year veteran of the pharmaceutical industry, Kallyope has made major strides in understanding the gut-brain axis and is considering its first clinical trials. In March it raised $112 million from investors, including Bill Gates, to advance existing programs and undertake clinical trials. Its initial focus is on drugs to treat metabolic and central nervous system disorders.

Sin Reh Jan Koh

abo thro pra cha Ear pla res hos car an pre and trai add the cha gui and cor

VISITING NURSE SERVICE OF NEW YORK HOSPICE BEREAVEMENT AND EMOTIONAL SUPPORT TEAM Team members: Willis Partington, John Anderson, Ben Cirlin, Janet King, Mary Kay King, Jean Metzker, Kei Okada, Gladys Ortiz-Alvarado, Debra Oryzysyn, Dianna Sandiford, Elizabeth Santana, Monica Santiago, Pamela Yew Schwartz and Rosanne Sonatore

Since the onset of the coronavirus crisis, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York Hospice Bereavement and Emotional Support Team has worked tirelessly to provide counseling and emotional support for patients, caregivers and VNSNY staff.

For health care workers, the pandemic has taken as heavy a toll on the mind as it has on the body.

Clinicians face untold stresses as they combat Covid-19 on the front lines. The ad hoc VNSNY team began as a small group, but it evolved to bring together staff from across the organization. Under the guidance of Willis Partington, the team offers continuing group support forums for processing stress, fear, anxiety and grief related to the daily task of caring for sick, dying and grieving Covid-19 victims. The team Skypes in virtual groups that permit participants to openly share their experiences. Co-workers are able to express feelings in a confidential, safe and nonjudgmental space during a time of social distancing as they learn powerful techniques for self-care. The VNSMY team also was instrumental in putting together a Zoom memorial service to honor the lives of colleagues and staff family members who died during the pandemic.

By remaining committed to aiding patients at their most vulnerable, and by supporting staff and preventing professional burnout, the team’s efforts ensure that VNSNY’s fight against Covid-19 is strongly supported.

48 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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es n

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VALERIE VERMIGLIO-KOHN

ANTHONY VICEROY

DARREN WALKER

ANDREW B. WALLACH, MD

LOUISE WEADOCK

Vice president and chief nursing officer Burke Rehabilitation Hospital

Chief executive officer Westmed Medical Group

President, Ford Foundation Chair, NYC Census 2020

As president of the Ford Foundation, a $13 billion international social justice philanthropy, Darren Walker took an unprecedented step in June in response to the Covid-19 crisis. The foundation announced it would issue $1 billion in 30-and 50-year taxable social bonds, applying the net proceeds to support social justice, human services, arts and cultural organizations. “We are facing a once-in-a-century crisis, and we must respond in unprecedented ways to sustain organizations that are advancing the fight against inequality at a time when the need is more pressing than ever,” Walker said at the time. Walker joined Ford in 2010 as vice president of education, creativity and free expression. He became president in 2013. Previously he was president at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he oversaw global and domestic programs.

Chief executive officer and chief nursing officer Access Nursing Services

Westmed Medical Group is one of several large physician practices that have reshaped the medical landscape in the New York City suburbs. Under Anthony Viceroy’s direction, Westmed has played a critical role in shaping the response to the Covid-19 pandemic in its backyard.

During the outbreak earlier this year, Viceroy overcame difficult odds to secure outpatient Covid-19 testing for the Westchester community, along with a supply of protective gear that allowed Westmed to provide uninterrupted care.

He led Westmed’s telehealth expansion— rolling out virtual access to more than 300 doctors in a matter of days—and developed a plan to keep the practice on firm financial footing in the face of pandemic-induced disruptions.

Ambulatory care chief, NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue Chief medical officer for ambulatory care, NYC Health + Hospitals Chief medical officer, NYC Test & Trace Corps Dr. Andrew B. Wallach, a dedicated physician and a natural leader, has headed ambulatory care at Bellevue Hospital since 2013. He has guided his team four times to achieve Level 3 Recognition—the highest grade issued by the National Committee for Quality Assurance—as a patient-centered medical home for Bellevue’s Primary Care Services. Under his leadership, the health system reduced primary care wait times for appointments from more than 60 to less than 14 days.

In response to the Covid-19 crisis, Wallach has led testing initiatives at the public hospital system. As chief medical officer for the NYC Test & Trace Corps, he oversees all clinical activity for Covid-19 testing and contact tracing citywide. Earlier this year NYC Health+Hospitals promoted Wallach to chief medical officer for ambulatory care.

Since joining Burke Rehabilitation Hospital in January 2019, Valerie VermiglioKohn has worked to foster a culture of trust and excellence in the nursing department and other areas of the hospital, part of the Montefiore Health System.

While she’s passionate about improving patient care through evidence-based practice, Vermiglio-Kohn also champions staff wellness.

Earlier this year she was a key player in the hospital’s Covid-19 response. She helped the hospital increase its capacity to care for recovering patients on an inpatient basis to alleviate pressure on acute-care hospitals, and she quickly established training for redeployed staff. In addition, Vermiglio-Kohn led the implementation of rapidly changing clinical practice guidelines for infection control and care for survivors of the coronavirus.

In January, long before Covid-19 was on everyone’s radar, Dr. Louise Weadock anticipated the fatalities and the disruptions and strains on hospital capacity.

She launched the Covid Care Force, which recruited, screened and Covid-19-trained 1,500 nurses to work in hospitals, nursing homes and testing sites in some of the hardest-hit communities in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Later, she founded a new Access Nursing company, Covid Clear Services, which helps employers meet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Phase I, II and II guidelines to safely reopen essential, nonessential and high-risk business operations in the U.S. With five city-center offices and seven hospital-based offices, Weadock doubled her organization’s workforce, employing more than 2,000 registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, assistants, technicians and phlebotomists to work within every clinical setting.

BE AN INDUSTRY INSIDER. Crain’s is recruiting thought leaders across industries to participate in an exclusive online advisory panel. Through this panel, you will share thoughts on the coverage you read in print and online as well as current events, business trends, attitudes towards brands and more.

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CAROLYN WITTE

GEORGE YANCOPOULOS

MICHELLE ZETTERGREN

ANDREI ZIMILES

BARRY ZINGMAN, MD

Cofounder and chief executive officer Tia

Cofounder, president and chief scientific officer Regeneron

President MagnaCare

Cofounder and chief executive officer Doctor.com

Carolyn Witte’s venture-backed startup is building a personalized, care-delivery model for women. Although they control more than 80% of U.S. health care spending, women have been underserved by a medical system that treats them as “small men with different parts,” Tia claims. Witte, a veteran of Google’s creative lab, first came up with the idea for Tia—a network of digital wellness apps, clinics and telehealth services delivering holistic care—after her own health issues led her to become disillusioned with the status quo in women’s care. Tia recently raised more than $24 million in a new round of funding to support the expansion of its telehealth and clinical services to new markets.

Dr. George Yancopoulos has been the lead inventor and drug developer at Regeneron since the company’s launch in 1988. The biotech firm has developed blockbuster drugs for blindness-causing diseases and asthma, among other conditions.

Regeneron is among the companies that have begun human trials of experimental therapies for the coronavirus. In June, Regeneron began clinical trials of its antibody cocktail to treat people with Covid-19 and prevent infection. Yancopoulos has deep roots in New York. After graduating from the Bronx High School of Science and Columbia College, he received his medical degree and doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from Columbia University. He began his career as an academic scientist in the field of molecular biology at Columbia.

Clinical director, infectious diseases, Moses division of Montefiore Health System Medical director of the Montefiore AIDS Center Professor of medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Michelle Zettergren, known for her entrepreneurial spirit, spearheaded MagnaCare’s recent partnership with BioReference Laboratories to offer Covid-19 antibody testing to labor members. The initiative could help guide decision-making about return-towork procedures and safety measures to protect workers and the general public. MagnaCare started in 1992 by serving organized labor and public sector clients, and it now administers health plans for self-insured labor and commercial clients.

Labor is especially worried about how to operate work spaces safely during the pandemic, given that skilled laborers were among the first group of employees to return to work. MagnaCare recently noted that for Covid-19 claims between March and April, patients on ventilators had average hospitalization costs of $100,000 to $300,000.

Since launching Doctor.com in 2013, Andrei Zimiles has nurtured it from a small team to 200 employees. The health care marketing company now serves more than 200 hospitals and health systems and thousands of private and group practices.

Zimiles, who began his career at age 16 building websites, recently expanded Doctor.com into telemedicine. In May, his firm rolled out a telemedicine platform that the company says allows providers to begin practicing medicine virtually in a matter of minutes, free of charge.

Doctor.com has seen a huge uptick in telemedicine usage. In an April survey of Doctor.com doctors, telemedicine use soared from 25% in 2019 to more than 85%.

Dr. Barry Zingman, a pioneer in the field of HIV/ AIDS, is helping to lead the charge to develop therapies for the sickest Covid-19 patients. Earlier this year he oversaw a study at Montefiore Health System of the antiviral drug Remdesivir that yielded promising results. Under a multicenter trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, his team is studying other Covid-19 treatments. Zingman is leading an initiative to offer Covid-19 vaccine studies to Bronx residents. His interest in infectious diseases began in the early 1980s, when he was a medical student caring for people with a then-unnamed illness that disproportionately affected young men, drug users and people of color.

WEBCAST Hospitals and Health Care Providers Prep for a New Normal August 31, 2020 | 11 A.M. – Noon The Covid-19 outbreak has forced everyone to confront unprecedented challenges and disrupted our healthcare system – particularly in the area of drastically decreased facility-based patient volumes.

In this webcast Crain’s will explore what changed for hospitals and health care providers during the pandemic and predict what health care leaders can expect in terms of recovery for the rest of 2020 and into 2021.

PANELISTS

Michael Dowling CEO Northwell

Anthony Viceroy CEO Westmed

Register at CrainsNewYork.com/Aug31HPWebcast Sponsored by

50 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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Produced by

NOTABLE SECTION PRESENTED BY MONTEFIORE-EINSTEIN

8/6/20 3:35 PM

Barry Zingman, MD Director, Infectious Diseases, Moses Division, Montefiore Health System

Montefiore-Einstein Congratulates Barry Zingman, MD

CN019807.indd 1

On his inclusion in Crain’s 2020 Notable in Health Care, for his dedication and record of achievement in the race to understand and treat deadly infectious diseases.

8/5/20 3:47 PM

FROM PAGE 1

job. The supermarket, which served as a mecca for foodies for 25 years, was closing that day. In January the store’s owner had filed for bankruptcy, 13 years after being acquired by a private-equity firm, and it was time to make cuts.

While Thomas, a 40-year-old father of a teen and a tween, looks for work before his unemployment runs out, Abel Porter, the chief executive of Fairway Group Holdings is preparing to receive a $325,000 bonus as a reward for managing the bankrupt grocer. Of Fairway’s 14 stores, two have closed, two more

second bankruptcy in four years actually were awarded two rounds of bonuses. First they were granted $1.1 million two days before the company filed for Chapter 11 in January as an enticement to remain on the job. Three months later they asked the bankruptcy court for $1 million more in bonuses.

At an April hearing held remotely, Fairway’s bankruptcy lawyer, Sunny Singh of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, said that the second round of bonuses was “very important” for enticing management to deliver the best possible outcomes.

“We think that this is justified— more than justified—under the circumstances,” Singh said.

Union official Rob Newell lis-

“WE PUT OURSELVES IN JEOPARDY DURING THE WORST OF THE PANDEMIC. WE WERE DEALING WITH CUSTOMERS” are slated to close and the rest have been sold. Mr. Porter declined to comment for this article. But Thomas had some choice words for his former employer.

“It comes off like a slap in the face,” Thomas said when he heard about Porter’s bonus. “We put ourselves in jeopardy during the worst of the pandemic. We were dealing with customers. The corporate people were not. You can’t help but feel slighted.”

Porter and other Fairway executives who led the company to its

tened to the hearing, and his blood started to boil.

As president of Local 1500 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, Newell had seen a parade of bankrupt grocers make the same arguments as Fairway’s lawyer. To Fairway executives, their attorneys’ and financial advisers’ $2 million in bonuses might seem a small sum compared with the company’s $66 million in losses last year and more than $200 million in liabilities. But filing for bankruptcy enabled Fairway to

walk away from more than $60 million in pension obligations. Unionized grocery workers across the city will have to contribute more of their earnings to fill the gap.

Above all, Newell wondered, why did Fairway executives deserve bonuses when essential workers struggled to keep shelves stocked during the pandemic?

“It’s disgusting in the eyes of any worker when a group of people charged with properly running a company fail and then get paid more to stay there,” Newell said.

“That’s disgraceful.”

He wasn’t the only one upset with Fairway’s bankruptcy bonuses. The U.S. Department of Justice also took notice. A trustee monitoring the bankruptcy case argued it was unfair for management to get rewarded when the rank and file didn’t. Local 1500 estimates that 50 employees at Fairway stores got Covid-19, and one died.

“The cashiers and the deli managers are not getting bonuses,” the Justice Department representative, Greg Zipes, told Judge James Garrity of U.S. Bankruptcy Court at the April hearing. Bonuses “should be applied to all the employees of Fairway.”

Garrity agreed Zipes made a “very, very good point.” He agreed that the work done by those at the cash registers and loading docks was “heroic” and that “all of the employees deserve merit and certain recognition.” Then he approved the bankruptcy bonuses.

“Debtors have demonstrated ample cause,” the judge said.

“It’s the same thing every time,”

BUCK ENNIS

JAMAINE THOMAS lost his job when the Harlem store closed.

THE UNFAIR WAY FOR HARLEM WHEN FAIRWAY OPENED ITS HARLEM STORE in a former meatpacking plant in 1995, its arrival was an early sign of the neighborhood’s renaissance. The market drew shoppers from all over the city, thanks to its large parking lot and proximity to the subway. Its cold room was so frigid that customers were lent winter jackets. The store-made herring in cream sauce wasn’t shy with the cream, and the challah was as delicious as any bakery’s. Signs read “Handmade stuffed peppers! Wow! Hooo! Strange but true!”

“Whole Foods is not a substitute, not even close,” said Minda Arrow, who regularly made the pilgrimage to Fairway from Washington Heights.

But Fairway had struggled financially for many years, hobbled by a debt burden dating back to when private-equity firm Sterling Investment Partners bought the company in 2007 and embarked on an expansion strategy in the suburbs—which didn’t pan out. The new owners also raised prices, figuring they’d make more money even with fewer customers.

“What they got was a death spiral,” said Howard Glickberg, grandson of Fairway’s founder and a longtime CEO who remained the store’s public face until 2014.

Glickberg had lunch with Fairway CEO Abel Porter shortly after he took the helm in 2017. Porter previously worked as president of a Honolulu-based grocer.

“He didn’t seem to grasp what the New York market was,” Glickberg said. “I offered to walk him through a store and show him all the little things that made us better and set us apart, things that his predecessor and Sterling didn’t understand. But he never took me up on it.”

Porter didn’t return a call seeking comment.

Glickberg said he’s disgusted by the bonuses going to Porter and his executive staff.

“They go against everything I stand for,” he said. “Why should these people get a penny in bonuses? The attorneys told me it’s unfortunate but that’s how bankruptcy works.”

—A.E.

Newell said later. “It’s expected that we will fight the bonuses and the judge will approve. There is no more unfriendly place to a worker than a bankruptcy court.”

An epidemic of bonuses

$33K

HOW MUCH one deli worker made per year working for the Fairway in Harlem

$325K HOW MUCH Fairway's CEO received as a bonus for managing Fairway through bankruptcy

It might seem strange to pay bonuses to executives who have led a company into bankruptcy.

Despite efforts by Congress to crack down on the payments, they have been steadily doled out since well before Enron and WorldCom executives stuffed them in their pockets two decades ago. With scores of companies in serious financial distress because of the pandemic, today is the golden age of the bankruptcy bonus.

“There has been an epidemic of these bonuses, just an enormous uptick,” said Jared Ellias, a professor at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law. “There are reasons for paying them, but they strike a lot of people as wrong.”

In the first half of this year, 50 bankrupt companies awarded bonuses to executives, according to bankruptcydata.com, a website from New Generation Research.

That’s 18 more than during the same period last year, 28 more than in 2018 and 38 more than 2017. Bankruptcydata.com says the portion of bankrupt companies paying bonuses has ranged between 25% and 37% in recent years.

“As the larger filings progress, this number may indeed grow to a higher percentage than the previous few years,” said Ben Schlafman, New Generation’s chief operating officer.

Large as the numbers are, they actually understate how often bankruptcy bonuses get shelled out.

That’s because companies increasingly are awarding them just before filing for Chapter 11, because those gifts don’t require court approval.

Hertz and JC Penney are among the companies that recently paid out bonuses just before bankruptcy.

Fairway awarded bonuses both before and after.

Companies say the payments prevent executives from abandoning ship.

“The theory is you don’t want a brain drain,” said Nancy Rapoport, a professor at the University of Nevada–Las Vegas’ Boyd School of Law. “Even though they may have made bad decisions, people who know the business are more likely to help the business.”

Rapoport added that bankruptcy bonuses can amount to last-minute cash grabs, especially when desperate companies are unable to come up with a viable plan to get out of Chapter 11 because of the pandemic, e-commerce or plain-old mismanagement.

“If a company has no clear way forward but wants to spend money retaining people, you have to ask why,” she said.

Some fans of bankruptcy bonuses argue that restructuring under the auspices of a bankruptcy court

BUCK ENNIS

BANKRUPT

is grueling, so executives need to be rewarded for their time. That’s the case Neiman Marcus made when it received approval for $10 million in bankruptcy bonuses for its CEO, finance chief, president, the head of subsidiary store Bergdorf Goodman and a handful of others.

“In recent months, the [bonus plan] participants have seen a substantial increase in their workloads,” the retailer said in court papers in June, “without any concomitant increase in their compensation.”

Neiman Marcus furloughed nearly 14,000 employees in March. The retailer declined to comment on the bonuses.

Judges commonly accept the argument that the payouts will help focus management on maximizing the struggling company’s value, which is the ultimate goal of Chapter 11. Bankruptcy judges typically are drawn from the ranks of bankruptcy lawyers, including Garrity, who used to co-chair the restructuring group at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. On sensitive matters concerning executive pay, legal advisers invariably defer to another set of advisers: compensation consultants.

“Bankruptcy judges don’t have the ability to micromanage compensation decisions,” said Robert Gerber, who teaches at Columbia Law School and as a judge oversaw the General Motors bankruptcy. “If the recommendation is reasonable under the circumstances it’d be rare for a judge to disapprove it.”

Pushback Gerber said bankruptcy bonuses were common when he started working as a lawyer 30 years ago.

After the stink caused by Enron-era executives collecting bonus payouts while their enterprises collapsed, Congress passed the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act in 2005.

The law aimed to rein in “retention bonuses” ladled out to executives at bankrupt companies simply for staying on the job.

In response, ailing companies began awarding retention bonuses before they filed for bankruptcy and began describing bonuses

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34.7% of the incentive bonus pool, or up to $325,000, on top of what another court document said was approximately $104,000 under Fairway’s pre-bankruptcy $1.1 million retention-bonus package.

Surveying the wreckage

awarded during Chapter 11 proceedings as “incentive bonuses.”

Incentive bonuses are contingent on hitting performance targets. But experts say the targets are often easy to hit.

For instance, a key condition for Fairway executives to collect their $1 million in incentive bonuses was to sell the flagship Upper West Side store and certain others. But the Justice Department trustee observed that wasn’t a difficult target because

management struck a sale agreement before filing for bankruptcy.

Other criteria were clear as mud.

“It is impossible to determine what, if anything, Incentive Plan participants must achieve in order to obtain a bonus,” the trustee wrote.

Fairway responded to the trustee’s critique by amending its bonus package and adding information, such as identifying the nine recipients by job title. It disclosed that CEO Porter was eligible to collect

With the 2005 law meant to clamp down on bankruptcy bonuses essentially a dead letter, it’s time for Congress to revisit the issue, said Karen Cordry, bankruptcy counsel at the National Association of Attorneys General.

“It’s been 15 years since the last bankruptcy legislation,” Cordry said. “We’ve never gone that long before without reform.”

A spokesman for Sen. Charles Grassley, sponsor of the 2005 law, said, “We will look into it.”

Rafael Mauleon, store representative for Local 1500, is now trying to find jobs for the Harlem workers at other stores. He said he realizes there won’t be enough for everyone.

“People were happy to be there, and it showed,” Mauleon said about the Harlem store. “No one thought the store would close. It was a good place. Good customers and good workers.”

But Thomas said that although he and his workers knew the store was doomed, they didn’t know when it would shut down until they were told on the last day.

“We don’t want much,” he said.

“Just a little job security and maybe some advance notice.” ■ Suzannah Cavanaugh contributed to this article.

RESTAURANTS

Rent still a struggle despite street dining

BY SUZANNAH CAVANAUGH

T

he launch of outdoor dining in mid-June brought life back to city streets—parking spots became pavilions; thoroughfares, piazzas. But after a month and a half, many restaurants still aren’t recovering.

An NYC Hospitality Alliance survey found 83% of 500 city restaurants could not pay full rent in July, 37% paid none at all, and their landlords weren’t letting them slide. The majority of property owners refused to waive or defer rent, and 90% would not renegotiate leases.

The survey’s results underscored a trend: Restaurants couldn’t cover rent in April, May and June either.

“This new data confirms the devastated state of [the] city’s hospitality industry: Restaurants and nightlife venues are struggling to survive, and a growing number consistently cannot pay their rent month to month,” said Andrew Rigie, the alliance’s executive director.

The industry, which has already suffered great economic losses because of the pandemic, was dealt another bad hand last month, when the mayor’s office cut a city program that helped small businesses negotiate commercial leases with

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PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

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

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Ralph M. Fatigate has joined ACG Risk & Compliance Solutions as Executive Managing Director in the Financial Institutions Consulting practice. Ralph brings 40 years of consulting, regulatory, and law enforcement experience. He is a former Director of Financial Crimes at the New York State Department of Financial Services, as well as the former Commissioner of Police in the City of Mount Vernon, New York.

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landlords. Crain’s reported that the Department of Small Business Services, which had initially housed the program, was flooded with cases and lacked the conflict-resolution center to manage them.

While outdoor dining has helped some restaurants reopen, it hasn’t brought in the money to allow restaurateurs to tackle unpaid bills.

Of nearly a half dozen restaurant owners Crain’s surveyed in July, no one reported turning a profit.

“We’re treading water,” said Greg Boehm, CEO of Cocktail Kingdom Hospitality Group. “Some days we make a profit, and some days we lose money, and it’s very weather dependent.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that the city would extend the Open Restaurants program and reopen street dining June 1 of next year after permits expire Oct. 31.

“These restaurants will be back again next year on the street, as we’ve seen tremendous success,” the mayor said.

Rigie doesn’t think many restaurants will make it that far.

“Unless we address the underlying rent crisis, too many of our small businesses face extinction and won’t be able to survive until next spring,” Rigie said. ■

Lauren Melesio Director, Reprints & Licensing lmelesio@crain.com (212) 210-0707

The Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations (RAB) is proud to announce the promotion of Robert Schwartz to Executive Vice President.

In his new role, Robert will be responsible for supervising RAB staff attorneys, advising members on labor and employment matters, handling grievances and arbitration, as well as serving as a trustee on various RAB funds administered in coordination with 32BJ and Local 94. RAB represents building owners of commercial and multifamily buildings throughout NYC.

WHAT’S YOUR COMPANY’S NEXT MOVE?

Create your own business headlines with Companies on the Move For more information, contact Debora Stein at 917.226.5470 / dstein@crain.com CrainsNewYork.com/ CompanyMoves

AUGUST 10, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 53

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Anheuser-Busch InBev Services, LLC seeks a FT

NOTICE OF FORMATION of O’Neil Enterprises, LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. Of State of NY (SSNY) on 6/23/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to 455 Central Park W, Apt 7D, New York, NY 10025. Purpose: any lawful act.

Global Director Digital Sales in New York, NY to engage in analysis of business requirements and creation of technological solutions to satisfy business needs. Must have a bachelor’s degree or equiv. in Electrical or Electronic Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related IT field and 5 yrs of rel progressive, post-baccalaureate exp. Int’l and domestic travel required approximately 30% of the time.

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Urban Compass, Inc. has a position in New York, NY. *Director of Engineering [COMP-NY20-DIRE] – Lead SW engiQHHULQJ WHDPV WR EXLOG LQGXVWU\ GHÀQing software services & products that leverage modern cloud technology, GDWD DQG DUWLÀFLDO LQWHOOLJHQFH WHFKnology; develop scalable engineering culture by leveraging modern principles of decoupled software systems and automated Continuous Integration and Deployment, & provide technical leadership to build, develop, and scale our platform that powers real estate agents, buyers and sellers. Mail to: M. Quinn, 90 Fifth Ave Fl 3, New York NY 10011& note Job ID #

PUBLIC & LEGAL NOTICES Notice of Formation of D & B/Ebrani LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 1/29/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to 19 Drury Lane, Great Neck, NY 11023. Prin. bus. addr: 50 W 47th St, NY, NY 10036. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of JVR ART ADVISORY, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/23/20. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 156 E. 79th St., #6A, NY, NY 10075. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the addr. of its princ. office. Purpose: Art advisory.

Notice of Formation of EDWARDS PEARL BEACH LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/24/20. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 420 E. 64th St., Apt. W3D, NY, NY 10065. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, c/o Richard W. Stone II at the princ. office of the LLC. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice is hereby given that a license number (pending) for an On-Premise full liquor license, liquor, wine and beer has been applied for by the undersigned 85 WINE CORP DBA MUNCHIES CORNER to sell liquor, wine and beer at a retail in a restaurant under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at 1505 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10028 for on premise consumption.

Notice of Formation of FRIENDSHIP SC PRESERVATION GP, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/31/20. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LLC: 60 Columbus Circle, 19th Fl., NY, NY 10023. 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 12207. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION of KYNECT HOLDINGS, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 3/ 23/2020. Office loc: NY County. LLC formed in TX on 2/7/05. SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served & mailed to: CT Corp. System, 28 Liberty St., NY, NY 10005.

Principal business address: 14675 Dallas Parkway #150, Dallas, TX 75254. Cert. of LLC filed with Secy. of State of TX loc: PO Box 13697, Austin, TX 78711. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of PAB Special, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/18/19.

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, 163 W. 74th St., NY, NY 10023. Purpose: any lawful activities.

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF LIMITED PARTNERSHIP (LP) The name of the LP is: RIVERVIEW APARTMENTS REDEVELOPMENT COMPANY, L.P. Certificate of Limited Partnership was filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) office on: 05-22-2020.

The county in which the Office is to be located: NEW YORK COUNTY. The SSNY is designated as agent of the LP upon whom process against it may be served. The address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LP is: 200 Vesey Street, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10281. The name and address of the General Partner is: HVPG RIVERVIEW GP, LLC, 200 Vesey Street, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10281. Purpose: any lawful activity.

11 HOYT STREET 29L, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 06/25/20. 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, 1270 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 1808, New York, NY 10020. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qualification of 5703 Hudson Yards, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/ 02/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 05/ 08/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 2532 Dupont Dr., Irvine, CA 92612. Address to be maintained in DE: GKL Registered Agents of DE, Inc., 3500 S DuPont Hwy., Dover, DE 19901. Arts of Org. filed with the DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St. #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of Intergate.

Manhattan Office 31 LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/12/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/02/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: C T Corporation System, c/o Intergate.Manhattan Office 31 LLC, 28 Liberty St., NY, NY 10005. Address to be maintained in DE: C T Corporation System, 1209 N Orange St, Wilmington, DE 19801.

Arts of Org. filed with the DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St, #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

PUBLIC & LEGAL NOTICES FOREX NURSERY LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 04/20/2020.

Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: Corporate Filings of NY, 90 State St., Ste 700, Office 40, Albany, NY 12207.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Formation of VW On The Shelf, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/ 25/20. 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, c/o John Massoni, Van Wagner Group, LLC, 800 Third Ave., NY, NY 10022. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Formation of MBB Holdings, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/17/20.

Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 400 E. 56th St., Apt. 11L, NY, NY 10022. Purpose: any lawful activities.

CARLEIGH’S SWEET TREATS, LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 0 6/17/2019. Office loc: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Johniece D. Erby, 502 West 177th St., Apt. 2D, NY, NY 10033.

Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

Notice of Qualification of IKEGUCHI HOLDINGS LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/20/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 03/31/16. Princ. office of LLC: 109 Greene St., Apt. 4A, NY, NY 10012.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, Attn: Edward Ikeguchi at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

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

Notice of Qualification of AIG FUND GP HOLDINGS, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/02/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 06/01/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of DE, Div. of Corps., The John G. Townsend Bldg., PO Box 898, Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of NEWHOUSE REAL ESTATE PARTNERS LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/31/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/04/06. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, P.O. Box 448, Syosset, NY 11791. DE addr. of LLC: c/o Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, Div. of Corps., John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of formation of FLATIRON DENTAL, PLLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/30/20.

Office location: NY County. SSNY designated agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against PLLC to 44 W 24TH ST. APT 22B, NEW YORK, NY 10010.

Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of formation of Limited Liability Company. Name: Joy Twin Parks Developers LLC (“LLC�). Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of the State of New York (“SSNY�) on May 15, 2019. NY office location: New York County. The SSNY has been designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. The SSNY shall mail a copy of any process to Joy Twin Parks Developers LLC, 40 Fulton St., Fl. 21, New York, NY 10038. Purpose/character of LLC is to engage in any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of JDB Special, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 11/18/19.

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, 163 W. 74th St., NY, NY 10023. Purpose: any lawful activities.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of NYCHA Harlem River PACT LLC. Art. of Org. filed with NY Secy. of State (SSNY) on 6/ 8/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c /o NY City Housing Authority, Gen. Counsel, Law Dept., 90 Church St. NY, NY 10007. Purpose: All lawful purposes.

Notice of Qualification of STONEBRIAR JL IRONDEQUOIT 1252, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 08/28/19. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 08/26/19. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c /o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of APQ 933 BROADWAY NY, LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/23/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 07/20/20. 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 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of MEDICAL WELLNESS PRACTICE, PLLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/23/20. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of PLLC: 133 E. 58th St., NY, NY 10022. SSNY designated as agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, P.O. Box 103, Hillsdale, NJ 07642. Purpose: Medicine.

Notice of Qualification of LONG ARC CAPITAL LP Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 07/24/20. Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/15/16. Princ. office of LP: 250 W. 55th St., 25th Fl., NY, NY 10019.

NYS fictitious name: LONG ARC, L.P. Duration of LP is Perpetual. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543.

Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. DE addr. of LP: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP filed with DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

NOTICE OF FORMATION of CAMBODIA VET PROGRAM, LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 5/15/20. Office location: NY County.

SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to 153 E 106th St, Apt 4E, New York, NY 10029. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of formation of Limited Liability Company. Name: Joy Twin Parks Managers LLC (“LLC�). Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of the State of New York (“SSNY�) on May 15, 2019. NY office location: New York County. The SSNY has been designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. The SSNY shall mail a copy of any process to Joy Twin Parks Managers LLC, 40 Fulton St., Fl. 21, New York, NY 10038. Purpose/character of LLC is to engage in any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of PRINCETON LONGEVITY MEDICAL OF NEW YORK, P.L.L.C. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/22/20.

Office location: NY County. Princ. office of PLLC: One World Trade Center, NY, NY 10007. SSNY designated as agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to David T. Harmon, Esq., Norris McLaughlin, P.A., 7 Times Sq., 21st Fl., NY, NY 100366524. Purpose: Provision of medical services.

Notice of Qualification of NEW YORK CITY PROPERTY FUND II (C) LP Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/23/20. Office location: NY County. LP formed in Delaware (DE) on 12/19/19. Princ. office of LP: 730 Third Ave., NY, NY 10017. 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: Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of LP filed with Secy. of State, 410 Federal St., #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF BEDNERS ACCOUNTING AND TAXES LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of NY (SSNY) on 04/ 27/2020. Office Location: NEW YORK County. The principal business address of the LLC is 17 STATE ST 40TH FLOOR, NY, NY, 10004. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

SOMERSTONE CAPITAL LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 06/22/20. 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, 480 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qualification of Bioenergy Devco, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 06/15/20.

Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 10/08/18. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 1001 Avenue of the Americas, Ste. 1224, NY, NY 10018. Address to be maintained in DE: 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts of Org. filed with the DE Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

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

54 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | AUGUST 10, 2020

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C

GOTHAM GIGS

BUCK ENNIS

HOPKINS grew BAM’s endowment from zero to approximately $100 million during her tenure.

KAREN BROOKS HOPKINS BORN Baltimore RESIDES Park Slope EDUCATION Bachelor’s in theater, University of Maryland; MFA, George Washington University TOP CHEF Hopkins, who lived on takeout for much of her career, has by necessity taken up cooking during the pandemic. Her shrimp jambalaya turned out so well, she said, “I blew my own mind.”

TAKE ME HOME The arts world veteran is no stranger to late nights at the office. She often brought her son to work with her at BAM when he was growing up, so he got much more exposure to cutting-edge theater than your typical kid. “I don’t want to see Einstein on the beach with the Indonesian shadow puppets tonight,” she recalls him complaining as a child. He’s now an adult and a real estate broker.

The art of making connections

A cultural-institution insider’s contact list bolsters events, donations

BY GWEN EVERETT

A

s a child, Karen Brooks Hopkins attended a Broadway show at the old Hippodrome Theatre and wanted to become an actress. When she got older, her creative-industry ambitions evolved to include a desire to become a director.

Now, 41 years after she began her career, she’s an arts world power broker.

Throughout her career, Hopkins has assembled an enviable Rolodex of contacts who run the top museums in the city. Before assuming her current role, senior adviser to Onassis USA, the U.S. outpost of the Greece-based Onassis Foundation, she was president of the avant-garde Brooklyn Academy of Music for 16 years. She’s also held research stints at preeminent arts organizations including the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

But it’s in her role at the Onassis

Foundation, which orchestrates and funds cultural events around New York, that she can truly put her contact list to work.

When Onassis wanted to put on the play The Birds, by Aristophanes, in 2018, she called the right people at Brooklyn’s St. Anne’s Warehouse to host it there. She also built a festival around the production, enlisting the help of contacts at the Natural History and Brooklyn museums.

Recently she brokered a partnership between the New Museum and Onassis to launch the mixed-reality lab ONX Studio. At the futuristic work and exhibit space, visitors can experience a blend of computergenerated and real-life images.

“I’m not doing the day-to-day work because what do I know about mixed reality?” Hopkins said. “What I knew was that the New Museum was doing great work in that area. So I made the match.”

Hopkins’ contact list also comes in handy when it’s time to raise

funds. The art of corralling donors to write the checks that nonprofits rely on to keep their operations going lies in finding the right doors to knock on. The process involves a lot of rejection and disappointment, she said, which makes the successes more thrilling.

During her 36 total years at BAM, Hopkins grew the organization’s endowment from nothing to approximately $100 million.

“I had the fundraising gene,” she said. “It’s about convincing people to do something that they may not yet know they want to do.”

Up next, Hopkins is helping the New Jersey Performing Arts Center add 7 acres to its site. It’s not the first time she’s worked with NJPAC. She studied its role as an anchor institution while at the Mellon Foundation.

“I’ve known them for a long time,” she said casually—just another example of how many parts of the arts world she’s touched in the decades since she first wanted to join it. ■

“I HAD THE FUNDRAISING GENE. IT’S ABOUT CONVINCING PEOPLE TO DO SOMETHING THEY MAY NOT YET KNOW THEY WANT TO DO”

AUGUST 10, 2020 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | 55

P055_CN_20200810.indd 55

8/7/20 3:59 PM

BE IN THE BOOK THAT IS ON EVERY CEO’s DESK ■ The Book reaches over 179k Metro New York decision-makers ■ 90% of readers reference The Book year round ■ More than 40k copies distributed

Secure your space in this indispensable business resource today.

Publishes Dec. 14 | Secure ad space by Nov. 23 Contact Lisa Rudy at lrudy@crain.com

CN019838.indd 1

8/5/20 1:21 PM

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