CRAIN'S NEW YROK BUSINESS .COM
Doctoroff leaving Bloomberg admin.
The deputy mayor is stepping down from his current post to become president of Bloomberg L.P.; no replacement has been named.
December 06. 2007 2:24PMBy: Erik Engquist
Buck Ennis
The deputy mayor is stepping down from his current post to become president of Bloomberg L.P.; no replacement has been named.
December 06. 2007 2:24PMBy: Erik Engquist
Buck Ennis
The chief architect of the city’s economic development agenda, Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, is leaving the Bloomberg administration this month to become president of Bloomberg L.P., the financial news, data and analytics provider founded by the mayor.At a City Hall press conference Thursday morning, the mayor also revealed that he had decided not to sell Bloomberg L.P. after considering the idea some months ago. “The company is not for sale,” said Mr. Bloomberg, its principal shareholder.
Mr. Doctoroff has known the company’s chairman, Peter Grauer, for more than 20 years, but the seeds of his hiring were planted only a month ago when the two traveled to South Korea, where Mr. Doctoroff spoke before a Seoul business group. Mr. Grauer later called the mayor and expressed interest in hiring Mr. Doctoroff.
In his post at Bloomberg L.P., which is second in line to the chairman, Mr. Doctoroff will oversee 10,000 employees.
He said he’d considered other private sector positions recently but chose Bloomberg because “I wanted to lead a global organization in industries I care passionately about. There’s no company that meets those criteria better than Bloomberg L.P.”
He said his relationship with the mayor, whom he called “my friend and future boss,” was a factor as well.
The mayor had high praise for a man considered to be his most important adviser. “As the chief architect of our five-borough economic development plan, Dan Doctoroff has done more to change the face of this City than anyone since Robert Moses,” said Mr. Bloomberg in announcing the move. “And unlike Robert Moses, he did it by working with communities rather than by bulldozing them.”
Mr. Bloomberg said a “small group of possible candidates are being screened” as possible replacements for Mr. Doctoroff. The search is being conducted by Nathan Leventhal, chairman of the mayor’s Committee on Appointments. One insider says that Shaun Donovan, commissioner of the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development, will replace Mr. Doctoroff, but a spokesman for the mayor insisted that no decision has been made.
The mayor said today that his deputy had originally planned to leave city government after Mr. Bloomberg’s first four-year term, but he persuaded Mr. Doctoroff to stay an additional two years. That period ends this month. Crain’s reported first in early August that Mr. Doctoroff was looking to leave by the end of the year, which his spokesman denied at the time.
The mayor credited Mr. Doctoroff with initiatives to create 130 million square feet of commercial and residential space, new venues for the Yankees, Mets, and Nets, the extension of the No. 7 subway line, 2,400 acres of parks, and the regeneration of more than 60 miles of waterfront, “all while displacing only 400 residents.” His greatest setback was a failed bid to bring the Olympics to New York City in 2012, caused in part by the state Legislature’s rejection of a stadium for the West Side.
Mr. Doctoroff said he hopes to continue playing a role on four key efforts of the nearly 200 he oversees: PlaNYC 2030, an initiative to make the city “sustainable;” Queens West, a proposed middle-income housing development; the development of Hudson Yards and the construction of Moynihan Station. He has asked the Conflicts of Interest Board to rule on the extent to which he could remain involved. He chairs the Hudson Yards Development Corp. and was expecting to chair the Queens West development entity when it is formed.
Mr. Doctoroff, a former Lehman Bros. executive who works for $1 a year—“93 cents” after taxes, the mayor noted—said friends sometimes remind him that in leaving the world of private equity to serve in City Hall these past six years, he missed the most lucrative period in the industry’s history. But the deputy mayor said he has no regrets.
“I would have done this job for nothing,” he said. After a few seconds of silence, he added, “That was a joke.” The Blue Room at City Hall erupted in laughter.
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