Longtime Partnership for New York City leader Kathryn Wylde is ready to sail off into the sunset.
Wylde will step down as the chief executive officer of the consortium next year, the New York Times reported. The 78-year-old plans to help the organization pick its next leader.
In discussing her pending retirement, Wylde said it was “time for younger leadership.” Her departure from a role she’s held for 25 years will usher in a new era for the New York business community.
“Without Kathy, I have no idea what some of our tax and regulatory outcomes would have been,” Blackstone Group’s Stephen Schwarzman said.
“When you walk through Midtown, and it’s less congested and easier to get to your destination, the person you have to thank for that is Kathy Wylde,” Rob Speyer added.
While Wylde’s been hanging around New York City in a prominent position for decades, she hadn’t shown any signs of slowing down. In recent months, she counseled City Hall as Mayor Eric Adams faced an indictment and is spearheading an effort on behalf of business leaders to get Donald Trump to ease off his attack on congestion pricing, which Wylde has long championed.
Her reputation in housing circles is mixed. In the 1980s, she was responsible for a partnership project that privately financed the construction of 40,000 housing units on city-owned land. But critics contend she could’ve done more on the housing front and hold her responsible in part for growing inequity between the city’s richest and poorest.
She and her organization have represented the biggest names in real estate, such as Blackstone, Vornado and Tishman Speyer.
When asked in The Closing five years ago about being seen as one of the most powerful women in the city, Wylde said, “I think I react the way most people do — that it’s sort of silly. But I’m only as powerful as the people I represent.”
Wylde hopes to spend more time in Puerto Rico, where her husband lives with seven rescue dogs and an astonishing 19 cats.
— Holden Walter-Warner
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