Top Citigroup executive to run for NYC Mayor

New York

Ray McGuire, a top executive at Citigroup, is set to leave the American multinational investment bank and run for Mayor of New York City in November 2021.

"This city is a big, complex business that is failing right now. It needs a chief executive who has a vision, who knows how to spark growth, revive the economy, attract the best talent and get this city back to work," McGuire, Vice Chairman of Citigroup and chairman of banking, capital markets and advisory, was quoted by The Wall Street Journal as saying in a statement on Friday.

Citigroup announced McGuire's departure from the bank and his jump into the race on Thursday.

He has been privately discussing running for mayor since January.

McGuire, 63, is getting into a crowded Democratic primary field for the Mayor's office.

Incumbent Mayor Bill de Blasio's term ends on the first day of 2022.

One of the highest-ranking Black executives working on Wall Street, McGuire has been vocal on key issues when it comes to policing and the Black community.

After the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, McGuire told CNBC that the killing was "cold-blooded murder" and called on corporate leaders to take the necessary steps to combat racism.

He recently authored a preface to a Citigroup report titled "Closing the Racial Inequality Gaps".

In the introduction, the banking executive reflected on how he's seen as a Black man.

"Yet even today, with all those credentials and as one of the leading executives on Wall Street, I am still seen first as a six-foot-four, 200-pound Black man wherever I go -- even in my own neighbourhood. I could have been George Floyd," he wrote.