Meet the ex-McKinsey exec helping NYC’s CEOs get comfortable with Zohran Mamdani

• Yasser Salem has become Zohran Mamdani’s bridge to New York’s business elite.
• The McKinsey alum and Ayn Rand fan hopes to turn corporate skeptics into partners.
• He told Business Insider that he has met with over 70 CEOs to discuss their key concerns.

Yasser Salem is not the sort of guy you’d expect to drop everything to get a socialist elected. When we met, he wore a white button-down, a tweed sport coat, and a baseball cap with a camouflage American flag on it that said “Husband, Daddy, Protector, Hero.”

There’s no irony in his choice of hat. A McKinsey and Saudi Public Investment Fund alum who ran his own investment firm, the 43-year-old father of five is a fan of Ayn Rand and her brand of free-market individualism.

Salem is now selling Zohran Mamdani‘s democratic socialist vision in New York City’s boardrooms. In September, he launched OneNYC, a pro-Mamdani PAC that’s raised nearly $400,000 from donors like Andrew Milgram, CEO of Marblegate Asset Management.

While the PAC has spent money on ads — including $53,000 on a TV spot — Salem said its true goal is to act as a connective tissue between New York’s business world and a populist candidate whose ascension is one of the year’s top political stories.

Salem’s outreach follows months of condemnations of the candidate by Wall Street’s elites like JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Pershing Square head Bill Ackman, and Third Point hedge fund boss Dan Loeb. Billionaire corporate leaders have been spending big in a last-ditch effort to elect Andrew Cuomo.

Since Mamdai’s surprise 12-point primary win, Salem said, the business community has been more willing to engage with the candidate. Salem has chatted with more than 70 CEOs, roughly 30 of whom head large corporations, he said. Most conversations have been with the finance, insurance, and real estate industries, but about a third have been with tech CEOs, he said.

Ralph Schlosstein, the Democrat chairman emeritus of Evercore and a cofounder of BlackRock, described OneNYC to Business Insider as “a noble effort to bridge the gap” between Mamdani, who is not well known to business leaders, and “those in the business community who are passionate about the success of the city.”

For his part, it has been reported that Mamdani has been on a charm offensive, meeting with tech executives and New York power brokers, including Dimon and Brooklyn developer Jed Walentas.

Mamdani is listening to his critics, Salem said. He announced last week that he would keep on NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch if elected, to the chagrin of his most progressive supporters. This came after a “resounding, resounding recommendation” from business leaders, Salem said.

Under rules governing PACs, Salem and OneNYC are not allowed to directly coordinate with the candidate, but he believes that there are more opportunities for partnership ahead. OneNYC is organizing a New York business advisory council that would be willing to advise a potential Mamdani administration, including Milgram and Kevin Ryan, a prolific venture investor of AlleyCorp who helped found Business Insider.

Kathy Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for New York City, told Business Insider in an email that Salem is “building the infrastructure” to give business leaders “seats at the table” if Mamdani wins. She said that her nonprofit group, which represents the interests of some of the city’s biggest corporations, has connected Salem with “individual leaders to hear their ideas and concerns.”

If the polls are correct, Salem says CEOs they’ve invited have “indicated that they’re ready to join immediately after the election.”

From McKinsey to Mamdani

Salem, a son of Egyptian immigrants who was raised in Manhattan, said the idea for the PAC came the night of Mamdani’s primary landslide, while he was celebrating at the campaign’s official watch party.

He thought that if an NYU Stern and Harvard Business School graduate could join a bunch of progressive activists, maybe he could find some common ground between New York’s business leaders and a Mamdani mayoralty.

It was an unlikely revelation for someone whose résumé is packed with corporate strategy experience, not political organization. After a few banking internships, Salem’s career took off with consulting powerhouse McKinsey, where he said he helped build infrastructure for the Saudi kingdom’s response to the MERS virus in 2014. He also spent a year with Saudi Arabia’s nearly $1 trillion Public Investment Fund, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund.

When Mamdani announced his run in late 2024, Salem was running Hira Ventures, his own small private advisory and investment firm, which built a Brooklyn-based urgent care clinic and a COVID-testing business during the pandemic.

As he grew his businesses, he also expanded his network of New York’s business and political power players.

When Salem first got a call late last year to meet Mamdani through a politically connected friend, he turned it down, he said. He was “in the middle of a deal, very busy.” He also saw Mamdani polling at 1% and thought Mamdani “either doesn’t know what he’s saying isn’t achievable, which is a problem, or he knows what he’s saying isn’t achievable, and that’s even a bigger problem.”

As Mamdani’s poll numbers and Instagram followers continued to rise, Salem decided he was judging the campaign like a consultant — expecting a five-year plan with milestones and metrics. But Mamdani wasn’t offering a step-by-step blueprint; he was setting a vision.

By laying out big goals, such as “an affordable New York for all,” Salem said, Mamdani could be creating the energy and momentum to make change possible.

Selling CEOs on a socialist’s vision

When Salem set up OneNYC, he saw a way to get business leaders to “disregard distracting noise,” and set out to use his experience. “When you’re a seven-year vet at McKinsey, your day-to-day is to talk to CEOs, right?” Salem said.

Mamdani’s platform — free city buses, a rent freeze, and higher taxes on millionaires — has rattled New York’s business elite. Executives warn his tax plan could drive wealth and jobs out of the city, while real-estate leaders say a rent freeze would squeeze landlords and stall repairs.

At an event on Wednesday, Home Depot cofounder Ken Langone said: “New York is on the verge of making a monumental mistake.”

Andrew Milgram, the Marblegate founder who donated $50,000 to a pro-Cuomo PAC before the primary and $50,000 to OneNYC when it launched, was convinced to support Mamdani because of the way his affordability message resonated with New Yorkers, calling him the “messenger of the moment.”

Milgram said it’s obvious Salem “starts with a pretty tall order,” but agreed that the idea “that we can generate real change in this city for the benefit of all” has some business leaders willing to think outside the box.

Inside Salem’s conversations

Mamdani’s loudest critics have threatened that if he wins, the city’s tax base will flee. A poll from Victory Insights, a right-leaning polling firm, reported that more than a quarter of New York City residents would consider leaving if Mamdani won.

Salem doesn’t think that will be the case.

“Early on, I heard almost zero about taxes, which I found fascinating,” Salem said about his conversations with CEOs.

Schlosstein said that many of his peers would be willing to pay more if they felt the difference in quality of life.

“A good number of those who are higher income are prepared to pay somewhat higher taxes in order to have a more successful city,” Schlosstein said.

Salem said that CEOs have highlighted three major concerns: Mamdani’s lack of experience, public safety plans, and fears that his housing affordability program would backfire.

Salem explained that a potential Tisch appointment showcases that Mamdani will put “capability” over “ideology,” helping allay concerns around his lack of experience or his plans for public safety.

Some proposals, like free childcare, were easy for business leaders to understand. Others, like free buses, have required his background in advising to help people grasp the idea.

Buses were selected because eliminating fares could also speed them up by cutting boarding time. Salem often cites a study by Charles Komanoff, the policy architect of New York’s congestion pricing laws, which found that free buses would run 12% faster, cost just $600 million in lost fares, and bring nearly $1.5 billion in economic benefits.

Salem says he hasn’t embraced socialism but has shed a “purist approach” to capitalism over the last five years, partially driven by price-gouging among his competitors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He tries to get CEOs to see beyond labels and focus on practical differences.

“It’s like, guys, I am a big fan of Ayn Rand, I’ve read all of her work,” he said. “We have a problem with labels. My position is that as business leaders, you have the added responsibility of distinguishing between labels and the actual meaning of the words.”