This summer Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed Fernando Ferrer to the board of directors of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Currently co-chairman of Mercury, a public strategy firm, Ferrer also serves as a director of Sterling Bancorp, Sterling National Bank, and the Regional Plan Association. He served as Bronx borough president for over 14 years before running for mayor of New York in 2001. He became the first Latino to win the Democratic primary for that office in 2005.
Ferrer has served as president of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a nonprofit think tank dedicated to economic and social justice, as well as a board member of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Project Renewal, and Metropolitan College of New York. He also chaired the board of the Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association and wrote a monthly column for El Diario-La Prensa and the New York Daily News.
In becoming a member of the MTA board, he joins fellow Baruchians John Banks (EMPA ’92), VP for government relations at Con Edison, and Ira Greenberg (MPA ’90), an attorney and president of the Sunnyside (Queens) Chamber of Commerce. Banks was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Greenberg was designated by the Long Island Rail Road Commuters Council.
—Marina Zogbi