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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani elevated Lina Khan, the antimonopoly former Federal Trade Commission head, to chair the city’s Economic Development Corporation, a surprise announcement that puts a crusading official in charge of managing the city’s business growth.
Mamdani also appointed Tony Shorris as the EDC’s president and chief executive officer. Shorris is a longtime City Hall official who has most recently worked as a partner at McKinsey & Co., but whose municipal experience stretches back to the 1980s.
Shorris’ appointment was a sigh of relief to much of the private sector, which had been on edge about the long delay in hiring someone to lead the agency. Khan has long been viewed by Wall Street as hostile to business, and her appointment is seen as a nod to Mamdani’s left base.
“Frankly, this feels like the economic wonk’s version of the 1992 Olympic basketball dream team,” Mamdani said at a press conference at City Hall on Wednesday morning.
During Mamdani’s transition period last year, Khan had interviewed candidates for the role of EDC president and referenced the idea of reining in corporate power, the Journal previously reported.
Shorris has a limited background in development and real estate but has worked with the industry in the past. Mamdani touted his work under former Mayor Ed Koch helping build affordable housing, as well as his later work raising the minimum wage. Under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, he helped bring universal pre-K to the city, which has proved to be a blueprint for this mayor’s expanded free-daycare policy goals. He also briefly ran the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Khan came to prominence as a Columbia University professor critical of Amazon, arguing that its practices were monopolistic. As FTC chair under former President Joe Biden, she unsuccessfully challenged Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, but succeeded in blocking the merger of grocery-store rivals Kroger’s and Albertsons. She succeeds Margaret Anadu, a former Goldman Sachs partner who now runs a consulting firm.
The EDC is a critical arm of the nation’s most economically important city. It is in charge of doling out city-owned land, tax incentives and financing subsidies for large-scale development projects in the city.
During past administrations, it has allowed the city to develop certain industries—like biotech, or legal marijuana—and has worked to develop large infrastructure projects, like the Manhattan High Line. It had also occasionally come under fire from some on the progressive left who criticized its use of public resources for certain projects like transforming the Battery Maritime Building in lower Manhattan into Casa Cipriani, a private social club.
CEOs of the EDC typically set the agenda. In the past, board chairs have rarely, if ever, overridden the executives. The appointments received mixed reactions from the city’s business community.
“Tony Shorris is a proven operator, the kind of leader who knows how to make this city’s institutions actually work. That experience matters,” Jessica Walker, president and CEO of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. “But this moment asks for more than steady management. It asks for vision.”
The real-estate industry was also satisfied with the appointment of Shorris after months of hand-wringing over who the administration would select to carry out a vision of “economic justice.”
“At a time when attracting investment and creating jobs is more important than ever, his leadership will be an asset to the city,” said James Whelan, president of the Real Estate Board of New York.
The appointments of Khan and Shorris were the first major personnel decisions that were shepherded through by Deputy Mayor Julie Su, the city’s first official for economic justice. During the press conference, she described a broad vision that would shift the EDC’s focus to economically help poorer New Yorkers.
“What does justice have to do with growth and development? Everything,” Su said. “A city can be booming and unaffordable at the same time. It can have ever-expanding skylines while its people live ever-shrinking lives. We are not going to pretend that that’s good enough.”
Write to Kevin T. Dugan at [email protected] and Rebecca Picciotto at [email protected]