The Partnership for New York City, a high-profile business advocacy group, has named outgoing Jersey City, New Jersey, Mayor Steven Fulop as its next head. The move comes as the largest U.S. city’s business community braces for the uncertain impact of an election to determine new leadership in City Hall.
Fulop is set to succeed the influential nonprofit’s longtime president and chief executive, Kathryn Wylde, after the partnership said it conducted a search involving over 30 candidates. Wylde, who has been at the helm since 2000, announced her retirement this year.
The partnership’s 300-plus members include a who’s who of corporate giants, from Amazon and Google to JPMorgan Chase and Blackstone, and such real estate developers as SL Green Realty and Vornado Realty Trust.
Tishman Speyer CEO Robert Speyer and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, serving as the nonprofit’s cochairs, and Hearst CEO Steve Swartz, its former chair, led a 13-person search committee before picking Fulop, the group said Monday in a statement.
A partnership spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a CoStar News request seeking additional details.
Fulop, 48, will have to move to the city for the job, according to the New York Post, but his potential salary could help make even New York affordable. Wylde's compensation in 2023 was more than $1.5 million, the Post reported, citing tax filings from the nonprofit.
Fulop will be taking the job when many in New York’s business and real estate sectors have expressed concerns over some of New York mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani’s campaign positions, including freezing rent on about 1 million rent-stabilized apartments; raising the corporate tax rate and personal income taxes on the wealthy; and opening a network of city-owned grocery stores.
The partnership has hosted various meetings with Mamdani where its members raised questions about his management experience and stances on public safety, housing and other topics.
Fulop “brings the expertise and leadership that this moment demands,” Bourla and Speyer said in the statement. “Our members look forward to working with him to ensure New York City continues to thrive.”
Real estate boom
Fulop, who grew up in Edison, New Jersey, will see his third term as Jersey City mayor end in January. He's joining the partnership after a failed bid this year in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.
As mayor of the city across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan since 2013, Fulop has been credited with helping to steer a real estate boom that involved making waterfront neighborhoods with sweeping views a coveted place to live for commuters.
Fulop also helped revitalize inland Jersey City districts such as Journal Square. Some 2,700 apartment units have been completed in that neighborhood in the past 12 months, according to a CoStar analysis. Kushner Real Estate Group and National Real Estate Advisors have completed a three-tower development there.
Under Fulop, Jersey City has seen the construction of more than 10,000 residential units and approved more than 18,000 others for future construction, the partnership said, adding that he’s also advocated for “innovative policies and tax abatements to catalyze development in underinvested neighborhoods across the city.”
Before serving as Jersey City mayor, Fulop represented downtown Jersey City as a councilman. He also worked at Goldman Sachs in its Chicago, Manhattan and Jersey City offices.
He was working in lower Manhattan on the morning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when he saw the first plane strike the Twin Towers, the partnership said. That led him to join the Marine Corps Reserves weeks later. He was deployed to Iraq in 2003 before finishing his service there in 2006.