Danny Berger (3:06)

And that, of course, was Citadel founder Ken Griffin there with Danny Berger of Bloomberg News. We want to get into our guest, Cathy Wild. She is president and CEO, outgoing president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, which represents much of the city's corporate leadership. So we're talking about real estate developers, private equity firms, banks, many, many companies. Bloomberg lp, by the way, is a member of the Partnership for New York City. She's also the part of New York City Mayor elect Zoran Mamdani's transition team. And we have a lot of questions to ask her. Also with us is, of course, Bloomberg News senior reporter Miles Miller. All of us here in studio, I told you as you sat down that we have about an hour of questions. So we're going to start in.

Kathy Wild (3:47)

We'll talk fast.

Danny Berger (3:48)

We will talk fast. Why did you want to be a part of the transition team for the mayor elect of New York City?

Kathy Wild (3:52)

Well, I think to the point that Ken Griffin of Citadel just made and he's one of our members as well and is a great corporate citizen of New York and, and Miami, he has, he made the point about the concerns about the high expectations that Mayor elect Mamdani gave to his voters. And he, to his credit, brought out 170,000 new voters, mostly young people in the primary, the cutoff age for his, his voter, his voter support was 45. So many of us are beyond that point and looking around and saying, oh dear, does he have the seasoning to be able to do this? And I think that he's got the energy and the intelligence and it's up to all of us who have a little more seasoning and to be helpful. And so that's why I joined the transition team and was happy to do that. And I'm working on the economic development workforce activities there. But in general, I think working with him to capture the enthusiasm and the energy, we came out of the pandemic very negative and we lost a million jobs. And then concerns about the cuts from the federal government on entitlement programs, whether it's Medicaid and health insurance, that is the fight going on now. This casts a real pall over New York City, which is very dependent on those funds. So I think that what he's brought is a positive energy and we ought to capitalize on that. And hopefully he'll be the best marketer this city has ever had.

Interviewer 1 (5:32)

Your role on the transition team, does it turn into a full time job in the Mamdani administration.

Kathy Wild (5:39)

I am definitely not, at my age, looking for a full time job. I'm trying to get away from a full time job.

Ken Griffin (5:44)

Right now you have more than a.

Interviewer 1 (5:45)

Full time job because you're outgoing president of the partnership.

Kathy Wild (5:49)

I am outgoing and I do not plan to take another job, but I do plan to help the new mayor if he wants it.

Interviewer 1 (5:58)

So beyond the transition period, you would stay on as an advisor?

Kathy Wild (6:01)

Well, I don't know. I don't know in what capacity. As I say, I'm there. I'm certainly going to help Governor Hochul deal with her challenges. I've worked closely with her. She's done a great job. And I think we're counting on her to continue to manage New York's relationship with Washington and the relationship between the state and the city, which is very important. Our affordability problems will not get solved by the city alone. This is going to take federal, state, city cooperation. And so I think all of us who are committed to New York City in the future, we have to be thinking of all three levels of government and how we work with the leadership at all levels.

Interviewer 2 (6:40)

You brought Mamdani to meet with business leaders on several occasions. I wonder if you can talk about what his demeanor is in these meetings. Right. I've talked to Bill de Blasio about, you know, how he works a room, how Mamdani works a room, and really gets the business community to be comfortable around him. But also talk about some of these policy proposals that business leaders wanted answers to. What are the things that business leaders said to him? Well, that sounds like a lofty thing that won't get done or, hey, that sounds like something that is much more than we're willing to back.

Kathy Wild (7:13)

Well, there's been quite an evolution since he won the primary. So in terms of his having a more nuanced position on a lot of the policies, you know, during the primary campaign, there were a whole slew of candidates and everything was one liners and the social media stuff was one liners or, you know, show and tell. When you get into conversation with CEOs, they want to hear data, they want to hear facts. And I have watched him evolve and grow over the last eight months where we had conversations last week, one on housing, one on childcare, where he was there with a pen and a notebook, taking notes, asking questions, and coming back with very substantive responses. So he has absorbed a lot and is now digging deep on these issues that, you know, Ken Griffin expressed concern about the fact that he made a lot, you know, raised a lot of expectations, create a lot of idealistic notions about housing and childcare and how we can do all this for free. I think he's very quickly figuring out none of this is free. Raising taxes creates real issues. You may raise the rates of taxes, but that may not result in more revenues if you scare people away or if you scare companies away or as we've seen lately, we've seen a real threat to jobs in New York. We, for the first time, first time in my experience over 50 years, are seeing a decline in the number of jobs in our financial services industry. Scary thing, that's 40% of our state income tax revenues. We don't, I mean, these are, you know, we've got to pay attention. And I think he gets that. But we've got to be at the table discussing these issues and helping figure out how do employers help solve the child care problem.

Danny Berger (9:13)

Kathy, you know, one of the things I think about, and I remember, you know, being at Milken years ago and talking with very wealthy investors who said, yeah, it's about time we pay more taxes. So what is the balance? And I am curious among those folks that you talk to who are very wealthy and a lot of times their wealth is not an income. It's assets and it's investment gains. What do they think, though, should be maybe more of their contribution. And I know they often contribute in philanthropy and so on. I know that. But I'm just curious, what is the balance of willing to pay more when again, I've had side conversations with folks are, are surprised that they aren't paying more in taxes.

Kathy Wild (9:55)

So what I found, and for somebody whose upper income earned income in New York, which is the, you know, our biggest taxpayers, we're paying 55% of our income to the federal, state and city government with you all in. So we're paying more. More than half my paycheck goes to the federal government. So it's not like we're getting away with something. For the very wealthy who are capital gains, et cetera, the big problem there is if they move their legal residence out of New York City, we don't get, we don't share or get taxes. They aren't taxed here on the basis of their global income. And so we may get a piece of their paycheck, but not their wealth. And that's a big question. It is. But what I found is over many years when business leaders and the big taxpayers are at the table and they see that, number one, government is doing what they can to figure out how do we offer the most efficient, the most effective services at the lowest cost possible? How do we make government more efficient on the one hand, then you begin to narrow. So what's the delta in terms of what do we need to raise revenues for? So for example, when Dick Ravitch in 2007 for Governor Patterson led the effort to figure out how are we going to pay to upgrade our subways which were falling apart, we supported, and the business community supported creating a payroll mobility tax where a portion of payrolls of corporations, employers who were in the metropolitan region would go to that 82% of the employees who work for our companies based in Manhattan take the public transit to get here. That was something everybody signed off on. We supported, we supported an increase in that tax twice. Same thing with congestion pricing. We supported congestion pricing. Obviously a user fee where you get something reduced congestion, more time in your day is, is easier to sell. So it is not. And actually when Mike Bloomberg was elected mayor Right after 9 11, the city had to raise real estate taxes in order to rebuild and recover from the 911 shock. We supported that 18% tax increase in real estate taxes. So it's not that we're anti all taxes, it's is government doing what they can to keep costs down, to be responsible in what they're spending and then what is the contribution and how do we make it that makes the most sense, gets the most bang for the buck.

Interviewer 1 (12:37)

Just very briefly, because you spent such a big part of your career working on affordable housing, I'm wondering if the mayor is sticking to freezing rent as his solution for affordability. Because not one person that we have spoken to over the last few months thinks that not increasing supply and rather freezing rent is the right way to approach the affordability crisis with housing.

Kathy Wild (13:00)

Well, the new mayor is very well aware that those are not mutually exclusive options and that if there's no economic return, nobody's going to build housing. He's figured that out. So he has. He has said really since pre primary that he understood the private sector had an important role in the supply side and he was going to work on that. So I think that again, his view is much more nuanced when he says now when he talks about freezing the rent, he says, and one thing that will enable us to do that is if we do reduce property taxes on rent stabilized regulated buildings. So he gets it. He can add and subtract.

Danny Berger (13:40)

So can you come back?

Interviewer 1 (13:43)

You said we had an hour, we had an hour. Hour's worth of questions barely scratched the surface.

Danny Berger (13:47)

But we so appreciate it. Kathy.

Kathy Wild (13:48)

Thank you.

Danny Berger (13:48)

Good luck.

Kathy Wild (13:49)

Thanks for having me.

Danny Berger (13:50)

Kathy Wild, President and CEO Outgoing President and CEO of the Partnership for New York State City, part of the Transition team of the New York City Mayor Elect and of course, our Bloomberg News Senior Reporter Miles Miller.

Podcast Host (14:06)

When patients have a disease and the cause is known, it usually ends up needing a specific solution. On the podcast targeting the toughest diseases, we explore the innovative tools, methods and unique philosophy Vertex Pharmaceuticals is using to search for treatments for some of humanity's most challenging diseases. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.

Lenovo Commercial Announcer (14:35)

If a Lenovo computer for your business is on your holiday list, don't shop around. Just go directly to the source Lenovo.com it's your last chance to get exclusive deals on the PCs you want for your business, like the ThinkPad X914, Aura Edition and Yoga 7i 2in1. So avoid all that shopping chaos and price comparing and just go directly to the source lenovo.com where PCs are up to 35% off. That's lenovo.com lenovo Lenovo.

IBM Commercial Announcer (15:10)

So you're telling me that the AI that's meant to make everyone's job easier to manage just adds more to manage? On top of the thousands of apps the IT department already manages? Funny how that works. Any business can add AI. IBM helps you scale and manage AI to change how you do business. Let's create Smile to Business IBM.

Odoo Commercial Announcer (15:36)

Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software Instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that handles everything CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part? Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com that's o d o o.com if.

Lenovo Commercial Announcer (16:37)

A Lenovo computer for your business is on your holiday list, don't Shop around. Just go directly to the source Lenovo.com it's your last chance to get exclusive deals on the PCs you want for your business, like the ThinkPad X9 14, Aura ED and Yoga 7i 2in1. So avoid all that shopping chaos and price comparing and just go directly to the source Lenovo.com where PCs are up to 35% off.

Tide Commercial Announcer (17:01)

That's Lenovo.com Lenovo Lenovo@CVS, it matters that we're not just in your community, but that we're part of it. It matters that we're here for you when you need us, day or night. And we want everyone to feel welcomed and rewarded. It matters that CVS is here to fill your prescriptions and here to fill your craving for a tasty and yeah, healthy snack. At cvs, we're proud to serve your community because we believe where you get your medicine matters. So Visit us@cvs.com or just come by our store. We can't wait to meet you. Store hours vary by location. Okay, so there's nice and there's luxury. The Delta 1 experience is all about luxury. It's the extra touches and personalization. If you've experienced it, you know. If you haven't, well, you deserve to. You deserve to relax in the comfort of Delta One lounges. You need to enjoy the chef curated meals during flights and the comfort of spacious 180 degree lie flat seats. If there's one thing I know, it's that everyone needs to experience Delta One. Learn more about the Delta One Experience at delta.com deltaone this is Jacob Goldstein.

Interviewer 2 (18:22)

From what's yous Problem? When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at o d o o.com that's o d o o dot com.