Kyle Kimball

About a month into his time at NYCEDC, while negotiating a development in Downtown Brooklyn, Kyle Kimball realized that he would be changing the face of a neighborhood that he passed nearly every day. At that moment, Kyle realized that the vacant site, an oddly shaped parking lot that would become a cultural space and affordable housing, would no longer be a part of the "un-built environment" in his mind. At that moment, the deal came to life for Kyle.Kyle's passion for public service stems from his interest in health care reform. He took a year off from Harvard College and worked as a hospice care provider for end-stage AIDS patients as an AmeriCorps volunteer, which led him to pursue a master's degree at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.Kyle was convinced that his path was set, but after taking two finance classes, he steered toward investment banking instead. After finishing his graduate degree in 1998, Kyle talked his way into the health care group at Smith Barney, leading to a decade-long career that included stints at JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.Kyle made a transition to a career in public service in 2008 when he joined NYCEDC and oversaw the Transaction Services Group, one of NYCEDC's largest departments. In that position he negotiated real estate deals on behalf of the City, which required him to balance several competing interests. As an example, he points to the Gotham Center project in Long Island City, which involved four other City agencies, the MTA, and three real estate developers in a deal that involved a land sale, development rights issues, contractual streetscape improvements, and City tenancy issues. He says that his primary job during the project was to keep all parties talking to facilitate financing for a deal that took place only weeks after Lehman Brothers collapsed.In 2011, Kyle became Chief Financial Office of NYCEDC. While he is still kept very busy working on complex development projects and making good use of additional resources provided by the federal stimulus package, Kyle predicts that next year will be a challenging one for new projects. Nevertheless, Kyle is as passionate as ever about working with his team to make the City stronger.