CEOs from 27 of the largest employers in the New York area are launching the New York Jobs CEO Council. The new CEO-led, results-oriented coalition will collaborate with educational institutions, community organizations and nonprofits to hire skilled workers, meet employer needs and connect New Yorkers — with a focus on low-income and Black, Latinx and Asian communities — with the skills that they need for today’s and tomorrow’s workplace. The member organizations aim to hire 100,000 traditionally underserved New Yorkers by 2030, a goal which includes job opportunities and apprenticeships for 25,000 CUNY students.
The New York Jobs CEO Council will be led by Dr. Gail Mellow, who most recently served as President of LaGuardia Community College.
“Access to quality education and training for in-demand jobs is key to creating economic opportunity for youth and workers in New York,” said Dr. Mellow. “Our mission is to ensure people in New York’s most vulnerable communities can access the skills that they need to pursue promising career pathways and benefit from the city’s economic recovery.”
“The COVID crisis highlighted a sad societal truth: underserved communities too often pay the highest price, and as we work to build back better from this virus, New York is confronting this injustice head on,” Governor Andrew M. Cuomo said. “The new initiative will play an important role connecting underserved communities with career resources and access to New York’s world-class educational institutions, helping ensure economic prosperity is a dream anyone can realize, no matter their zip code.”
New York has the largest gross domestic product (GDP) of any Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in the U.S. However, not all of the area’s residents are positioned to benefit from the city’s economy as it recovers from the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. Even before the crisis, which has had a disproportionate impact on low-income Black, Latinx and Asian communities, unemployment in the Bronx was 85% higher than in Manhattan. At the same time, jobs in high demand have not been filled, with less than 400,000 unemployed workers but significantly more job openings in New York in 2018-2019.
By joining forces with local educational institutions, community organizations and nonprofits, the New York Jobs CEO Council members will use their collective resources, capital and network to scale proven employer solutions, build on successful models and share best practices to maximize the Jobs Council’s impact in creating pathways to stable careers for New Yorkers in low-income and diverse communities.
“The economic crisis brought on by COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on low-income communities of color, and our recovery starts with investing in them,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “I’m thankful the New York Jobs CEO Council is joining us to promote economic justice and provide opportunities for our City’s diverse workforce. Together, we will build back our economy fairer and stronger than ever before.”
The New York Jobs CEO Council’s co-chairs include: Jamie Dimon, CEO and Chairman, JPMorgan Chase; Carmine Di Sibio, Global Chairman and CEO, EY; Arvind Krishna, CEO, IBM; Kevin Sneader, Global Managing Partner, McKinsey & Company; and Julie Sweet, CEO, Accenture. Other initial members of the organization include: Ajay Banga, CEO, Mastercard; Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon; Michael Corbat, CEO, Citi; Steven J. Corwin, M.D., CEO, NewYork-Presbyterian; Kenneth Davis, M.D., President and CEO, Mount Sinai Health System; Brian Duperreault, CEO, AIG; Roger Ferguson, President and CEO, TIAA; Larry Fink, CEO and Chairman, BlackRock; Todd Gibbons, CEO, BNY Mellon; Peter Grauer, Chairman, Bloomberg L.P.; Meredith Kopit Levien, incoming President and CEO, The New York Times Company; John McAvoy, CEO, Con Edison; Brian Moynihan, CEO, Bank of America; Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft; Philip Ozuah, M.D., Ph.D., CEO, Montefiore Medicine; Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google; Charlie Scharf, CEO, Wells Fargo; David Solomon, Chairman and CEO, Goldman Sachs; Rob Speyer, President and CEO, Tishman Speyer; Stephen Squeri, Chairman and CEO, American Express; Craig Thompson, M.D., President and CEO, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; and Hans Vestberg, CEO, Verizon.
The New York Jobs CEO Council will seek opportunities to engage additional CEOs in order to broaden its membership and ensure that companies of all sizes are represented.
Goals and Partners
The initial goal of the New York Jobs CEO Council is to hire early-career New Yorkers from low-income and Black, Latinx and Asian communities into stable jobs that set them on long-term career pathways.
The New York Jobs CEO Council will collaborate with CUNY to support student learning and the development of in-demand career pathways. These efforts will help 25,000 students who face barriers to economic opportunity secure entry-level jobs, apprenticeships and work-based learning opportunities with promising career trajectories at the New York Jobs CEO Council member companies.
“Having lifted generations of low-income New Yorkers into the middle class and beyond, CUNY’s singular academic quality and affordability set it apart as perhaps the most potent engine of social and economic advancement in the United States,” said Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, Chancellor, City University of New York. “Because of our vast reach and unparalleled ability to scale educational opportunities — from short-term certificates to doctoral degrees — CUNY is ideally positioned to prepare large numbers of diverse, adept New Yorkers to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunity that the New York Jobs CEO Council initiative represents. We look forward to working with many of the largest employers in the City in applying theoretical learning to real-world contexts and building on CUNY’s historic mission of high-quality education and service to underserved students and immigrant communities.”
In addition, to help more New Yorkers access modern youth apprenticeship opportunities, the New York Jobs CEO Council will adopt the CareerWise NY model of apprenticeship. CareerWise NY is an initiative that was incubated by nonprofit organization HERE to HERE and will now be established as an independent nonprofit.
“Our student interns and apprentices are motivated by doing ‘work that matters’ in a real-world setting and as part of a team. For them, this is the ideal way to acquire critical workplace skills and begin building a network. Employers are often surprised by how quickly they learn and are able to contribute. That’s why we are excited about the launch of the New York Jobs CEO Council,” said Abby Jo Sigal, Founding CEO of HERE to HERE. “For HERE to HERE, it is the fruition of an enormous amount of work over the past two years to help establish and help incubate the business council as well as CareerWise New York. The new Jobs Council will bring the opportunities for work-based learning to many more students. It’s a great investment in New York’s future and economic recovery and promises to be life changing for many of the students we work with in the Bronx and throughout the city.”
The New York Jobs CEO Council will also partner with organizations such as HERE to HERE and the New York City Department of Education to help scale relevant programs. Over time, the Jobs Council will seek to foster partnerships with additional educational institutions, community organizations and nonprofits.
In the future, the New York Jobs CEO Council will broaden the scope of its work to further expand its efforts to connect young people with in-demand jobs and support mid-career and transitioning workers.
More information about the Jobs Council’s goals and partners can be found here.
Leadership and Governance
Dr. Gail Mellow (pictured) will serve as Executive Director of the New York Jobs CEO Council. Dr. Mellow most recently served as President of LaGuardia Community College, where she developed and executed the College’s strategy that increased credit enrollment, graduation rates and dramatically expanded workforce development programs. Stanford University research ranks LaGuardia among the top five community colleges in creating social mobility for its students. 
Dr. Mellow has more than 30 years of experience in higher education. She is a nationally recognized leader on the changing landscape of higher education and strategies for moving low-income students into the middle class. Her leadership catalyzed collaboration between business and education resulting in thousands of new jobs and more profitable companies in New York City. Frequently appointed to national commissions on education and the workplace, she is also an active scholar with more than 20 books and articles.
More information on the Jobs Council’s leadership and governance structure can be found here.
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