When Kathy Wylde stood onstage at her retirement party on a frigid Tuesday night in late January, looking out over the Rainbow Room and the glittering lights of the city below, she had a simple message for the masters of the universe who had come to see her off: Don’t panic.

“We are going to do great going forward,” she told them, trying to assuage the fears of the assembled financiers and real-estate developers who were still adjusting to life in month one of the Zohran Mamdani era in New York. For the past 25 years, Wylde has led the Partnership for New York City, a collection of 300 CEOs whose mission is to build ties between business and government. This was her swan song as she prepared to give up the reins of the group — a process that had been far from smooth or simple. She noted that David Rockefeller, the first head of the Partnership, got his start in government as an aide to Fiorello La Guardia, who she said was a democratic socialist, much like the current inhabitant of City Hall. “So not to worry.”

Wylde announced that she was stepping down last May, back when most of the bold-faced real-estate developers, billionaire financiers, and multinational corporate CEOs who make up the Partnership’s board had little reason to fear the possibility of a socialist mayor. Andrew Cuomo looked like a sure winner and had appeared at a Partnership meeting a few months prior to tell them what he thought of their little group: They were useless, punching far below their weight in city politics — which meant that New York had no countervailing force to beat back the rising tide of the left in the form of groups like the Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America.

It was a bracing message, and many in the room felt that it was aimed squarely at Wylde. The two had feuded for years, despite the fact that they both hail from the moderate and pro-business wing of New York politics. So it made sense that, as Cuomo looked set to resurrect his career by reclaiming City Hall, Wylde, 79, was preparing to step aside. “What do you think I am going to do?” she told associates at the time. “Stick around for another four years and have fucking Andrew Cuomo torture me?”

That of course proved to be a miscalculation. Mamdani was still more or less unknown even to Wylde, a woman who makes it her mission to know everyone. Inside the group, his surprising win over Cuomo in the Democratic primary was seen as an extinction-level event for the city’s economy. Mamdani himself was seen as a confirmed antisemite.

Over the summer, Mamdani, eager to assuage those concerns, coordinated with Wylde to set up a series of meetings with the Partnership. By most post hoc accounts, the conversations went well, with Mamdani reassuring the business leaders that he was not the wild-eyed radical they feared. But some in the Partnership thought it went almost too well; here was an avowed socialist after all, someone who unapologetically opposed Israel, who only a few years ago was taking pictures of himself giving the finger to a statue of Christopher Columbus and tweeting about how the police were racist, anti-queer, and should be defunded, and here was Wylde, extending a hand. Or worse, putting a thumb on the scale. The Partnership is made up mostly of CEOs, but there are a few nonprofit leaders there too, and some in the room felt like Wylde was calling only on those who were more favorably inclined toward the next likely mayor to ask questions.

The day after Mamdani’s Partnership meeting, Wylde, who seemed relieved to not have Cuomo around anymore, went on CNBC’s Squawk Box and was asked what the private meeting was like. “Everyone walked away thinking he was the most impressive candidate they have seen in generations,” she told host Andrew Ross Sorkin. “He was a very compelling, charming, smart young man and gives you a sense that he is honest, means what he says, and is full of hope.”

It was jarring to........

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