"When Kathy Wylde stood onstage at her retirement party on a frigid Tuesday night in late January, looking out over the Rainbow Room and the glittering lights of the city below, she had a simple message for the masters of the universe who had come to see her off: Don't panic. "We are going to do great going forward," she told them, trying to assuage the fears of the assembled financiers and real-estate developers who were still adjusting to life in month one of the Zohran Mamdani era in New York. For the past 25 years, Wylde has led the Partnership for New York City, a collection of 300 CEOs whose mission is to build ties between business and government. This was her swan song as she prepared to give up the reins of the group - a process that had been far from smooth or simple. She noted that David Rockefeller, the first head of the Partnership, got his start in government as an aide to Fiorello La Guardia, who she said was a democratic socialist, much like the current inhabitant of City Hall. "So not to worry.""
"Wylde announced that she was stepping down last May, back when most of the bold-faced real-estate developers, billionaire financiers, and multinational corporate CEOs who make up the Partnership's board had little reason to fear the possibility of a socialist mayor. Andrew Cuomo looked like a sure winner and had appeared at a Partnership meeting a few months prior to tell them what he thought of their little group: They were useless, punching far below their weight in city politics - which meant that New York had no countervailing force to beat back the rising tide of the left in the form of groups like the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America."
Kathy Wylde retired after 25 years leading the Partnership for New York City, a 300-CEO group that connects business and government. At her retirement party she told assembled financiers and developers not to panic about the incoming Zohran Mamdani era and invoked David Rockefeller and Fiorello La Guardia as precedents. Wylde announced her May resignation amid a shifting political landscape in which Andrew Cuomo had criticized the Partnership as ineffective and centrist business leaders faced pressure from left-wing groups such as the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America. Her departure capped a fraught leadership transition.
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