Meet the 2 men putting New York’s $300 billion pension fund in play for the first time in 20 years
On paper, New York State Comptroller is a sleepy job. No press secretary emerges from the office to spin the Sunday shows. No Twitter feuds, no viral moments. A recent poll found that 65% of New York Democrats have never heard of the man who has held the position for two decades. What Thomas Di Napoli actually controls is another matter entirely. As sole trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund — the third-largest pension fund in the United States — he manages nearly $300 billion without a board, without a co-signer, and without, until very recently, a single Democratic opponent. For the first time since DiNapoli was handed the job in a backroom Albany deal in 2007, two challengers are making a case that the office has been asleep at the switch — and that New Yorkers are paying for it. Fortune talked to both of them, Drew Warshaw and Raj Goyle, and the two longtime acquaintances, if not friends, had a clear message: the time for a change is now. The irony is that they may be each other’s biggest obstacle. Both are running against the same 20-year incumbent. Both make nearly identical arguments about fees, fiduciary failure, and a $300 billion fund that has been pointed in the wrong direction. And both are drawing from the same pool of progressive Democrats who, for the first time in two decades, are paying attention to this race — with days left to decide. The numbers nobody ran Warshaw, 45, told Fortune that he’s running because “this is the way my brain works.” A former New York politico, holding positions in the New York Governor’s Office and the Port Authority, along with a career in business in renewable energy, Warshaw said his business school training was the motivating factor behind this campaign. “No one in 20 years ever asked and answered this question: how has the third-largest investor in the United States of America performed? How’s he done? Like, no one measured it, no one quantified it.” After