Mayor Mamdani cancelled a $9.9 million McKinsey contract with the Department of Social Services, then appointed Anthony Shorris — a McKinsey partner who worked on that very contract — to head the city's Economic Development Corporation.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani spent months holding up a $9.9 million McKinsey & Co. retainer with the Department of Social Services as a prime exhibit in the city's consulting-excess problem. On July 22, he appointed a McKinsey partner who worked on that contract to lead New York City's top economic development agency.

Mamdani named Anthony Shorris — a former first deputy mayor under Bill de Blasio who joined McKinsey as a partner in 2021 — to head the city's Economic Development Corporation. The agency dispenses tax incentives and grants to businesses and developers across the five boroughs, and its budget runs through billions in economic-development commitments.

The DSS contract that Mamdani cancelled — valued at $9.9 million and covering work including SNAP benefit-error reduction and what city records describe simply as "business consulting services" — was terminated as part of the administration's drive to find $1.7 billion in savings. McKinsey had collected approximately $7.2 million before the city pulled the plug; city records show the last payment was processed July 21, the day before Shorris stepped to the City Hall podium.

At the press conference announcing his appointment, Shorris acknowledged the connection. "I did spend some time working on that," he said of the DSS contract, declining to say more about his specific role.

The McKinsey relationship traces back further. As first deputy mayor under de Blasio, Shorris oversaw a $27.5 million McKinsey contract to overhaul detainee classification at Rikers Island. The firm's Housing Unit Balancer — an algorithm intended to reduce violence by placing detainees based on dozens of risk factors — was abandoned in 2022 after four years with violence at the complex continuing to climb. "It made the whole city sour," then-Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi told The City Reporter when the program ended.

City records also show McKinsey holds a separate $909,000 contract tied to the Mayor's office, with zero payments recorded as of this week.

Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project — a watchdog focused on corporate influence in government — said the appointment illustrated how former public officials and consulting networks stay entangled. "McKinsey is much more than just a specific firm; it is a network," Hauser said.

A City Hall spokesperson did not respond to questions about why the McKinsey DSS contract was singled out for cancellation, or whether Shorris's work on it figured in the administration's vetting. Mamdani, introducing Shorris at City Hall, stressed four decades of public-sector experience: "Time and again he has proven himself unafraid to use the levers of city government to deliver real benefits for working New Yorkers."

Shorris's McKinsey biography describes a client list — state and local governments, public authorities, health-care systems, universities, real estate developers — that overlaps substantially with the EDC's own portfolio of grantees and incentive recipients.