New York City is the most complex, most ambitious corporation in America. With a budget topping $116 billion, more than 325,000 employees (plus likely triple that in contract workers), and a portfolio of services that spans everything from child care to bridges, snowplows to sewage, it delivers for more than 8.5 million residents every single day.
It’s a city that builds as much underground as it does above, manages the nation’s largest public school system and probably responds to more emergency calls than any other place on Earth.
And it does so while answering to the most discerning, outspoken, and demanding shareholders in the world: New York City taxpayers.
What does it take to run this miraculous beast of a city? A deep bench of meritorious, mission-driven managers — people who combine operational grit, strategic vision, and moral clarity. The commissioners leading more than 50 agencies and the deputy mayors synthesizing and accelerating this work.
Assembling that team is the most critical task ahead for the next mayor. And this year New Yorkers deserve to know — now, not in November — the abilities and expertise of the team. The nation is reeling from the reality show picks of our president, for our current city administration, way more than a handful of key agency commissioners and deputy mayors resigned under a dark cloud, and the Democratic primary winner has no prior city government experience so he will have to fill that void through smart leadership picks.
This year, if the public is to truly judge the man pressing for the job (one day it will be a woman) we need to know now who will be by his side to govern before, not after we fill out our ballots.
The problems that come across the mayor’s desk aren’t just complicated — they’re escape-room level puzzles, layered with politics, legal constraints, and massive financial stakes. These are tedious decisions that take institutional knowledge, care and urgency. Four years is a blip in time, prudent progress has to move at warp speed.
Whether we’re talking about affordability, infrastructure, public health, education or safety, none of it gets done well without the right kind of talent. If the team isn’t excellent, the city won’t deliver — period.
Thankfully there has already been much discussion of the next police commissioner, focused on Jessie Tisch’s clear competency. But there are many other game changing roles. Take for example the aptly named corporation counsel, the city’s top attorney. Are they able to navigate the spider web of administrative law to implement bold policies, proactively defend our city, and recruit and retain top talent?
Or the budget director, whose funding decisions determine whether our schools get the right supplies, whether our underground pipes are built to withstand the next tropical storm and whether we invest in coastal protection against inevitable destructive tides, remember Sandy.
The pot is not endless so what’s not being funded is as important as what is. The role requires creative forward thinking to identify needed funding beyond our current tax base, especially as federal dollars dry up, while also setting up the next generation for success.
New Yorkers deserve to know who’s going to lead this city — not just the person at the top, but the characteristics if not the names of the team executing the vision. This city’s “shareholders” — the taxpayers who fund it all — expect and deserve nothing less.
As we head toward November this year we need to ask the candidates an atypical question, who’s on your bench? What qualities are you looking for in your commissioners and deputies? What’s your selection process? Be specific. Be accountable. The candidates can and do convincingly articulate campaign promises, but none will come to fruition without an “A” team. The good news is we live in a city with an abundance of talent and conviction.
This is the greatest public enterprise on Earth. We can succeed. But we must choose — and staff — wisely. Because in this city, leadership isn’t just symbolic. It’s structural.
Joshi is a former New York City deputy mayor for operations and the incoming president of Green-Wood Cemetery, a perennial public place of beauty, culture and peace.
