By Kevin T. Dugan and Rebecca Picciotto
There is a gaping hole in the administration of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and it is the one that is making executives in real estate and finance very, very nervous.
As the Mamdani era nears its sixth month, City Hall's search for a chief executive to run the Economic Development Corporation is moving at a crawl. The little-known but powerful organization behind megaprojects such as Manhattan's Hudson Yards plays a key role in greenlighting new developments and historically has heavily relied on input from the city's business elite.
The EDC is in the midst of an identity crisis under Mamdani, who wants to shift its focus toward "economic justice," which favors workers. Julie Su, whom he named the first-ever deputy mayor for economic justice, and her team have interviewed several candidates for the CEO job but have yet to land on someone, according to people familiar with the matter. The holdup is due in part to their inability to articulate what the revamped corporation will do, the people said.
So far, the primary directive is to find someone who can focus on priorities such as higher pay, more stable jobs, reducing poverty and promoting racial equity. The opening has caused anxiety among the city's business leaders, who are waiting to hear how that will translate into actual policy.
"Filling the seat would really go a long way to conveying to my members that the mayor takes growth just as seriously as affordability, which obviously is very important for residents and businesses alike," said Jessica Walker, CEO of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, a professional group for large and small businesses in the city borough.
Su said in a statement she is working closely with the EDC and its interim leader, Jeanny Pak, on critical projects, both new and existing.
"Economic justice demands that we focus on economic growth and on who benefits from that growth. EDC is critical to that focus and has been since day one of this administration," she said.
The EDC has long been the New York City real-estate industry's primary bridge to City Hall. It doles out city-owned land, tax breaks and financing subsidies for big developments. It can also help fast-track reviews and cut red tape to move projects along, and helps encourage the growth of certain industries, like life sciences and tech, and the high-paying jobs that come with them.
Executives -- including those who support the mayor -- are fretting that City Hall has blown whatever goodwill it had with the business community after singling out billionaire Ken Griffin when introducing the pied-à-terre tax, and are further straining it by letting a key appointment go unfilled. Some developers are so wary about the hiring delay that they are pushing pause on submitting proposals to the EDC, a person familiar with the matter said.
Multiple business-group leaders said it was seemingly all that executives were talking about. One Brooklyn politician, who asked not to be named, brought up the wait for an EDC head unprompted to a Wall Street Journal reporter during his morning commute.
When Su visited the EDC offices in downtown Manhattan on May 7, an employee asked during a Q&A session when a new CEO would be hired. Her answer was the same one she had given for months: they were still looking, according to an attendee.
A spokesman said the EDC is continuing to work on "generational projects" as it always has. In addition to supporting Mamdani's city-owned grocery store in Manhattan, it has continued to advance large projects throughout the city, like SPARC Kips Bay, a state-of-the-art life science center in Manhattan.
Su and other members and advisers of the administration have considered or interviewed several candidates in recent months, according to people familiar with the matter, but aren't close to naming anyone. Potential candidates included two executives -- David Ehrenberg and Lindsay Greene -- with ties to the Brooklyn Navy Yard development, which was also the source of the prior EDC CEO.
Others considered include Rohit Chopra, the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under President Joe Biden; Marisa Lago, a former New York state development official; James Katz, a deputy secretary of economic development for the state; and Michael Gianaris, the state representative who helped kill Amazon.com's proposal for a second headquarters in Queens in 2019.
During Mamdani's transition period last year, Lina Khan, Biden's antitrust crusader at the Federal Trade Commission, had interviewed candidates and referenced the idea of reining in corporate power, people familiar with the discussions told the Journal.
Some candidates felt that an extensive resume in economic development was no longer enough for the job, and that their approach now also needed to match the administration's view of economic justice, according to people familiar with the matter.
Others close to the process say the process has also been complicated by the fact that Su , who moved to New York this year to work for Mamdani, appears unfamiliar with the intricacies of New York City.
Su, who's from Wisconsin but grew up in Los Angeles and was most recently the acting labor secretary under Biden, has been crisscrossing the city in recent months to speak with CEOs and business leaders, including the heads of major Wall Street financial institutions and influential business lobbying organizations.
In an interview this month, Su told the Journal she has been talking with executives about ways the city and business can work together.
"Sometimes people are surprised at how much we want to work in partnership," Su said.
Write to Kevin T. Dugan at kevin.dugan@wsj.com and Rebecca Picciotto at Rebecca.Picciotto@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 29, 2026 19:01 ET (23:01 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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