Ray McGuire’s Political Moment Has Arrived With Early Bet on Kamala Harris

Amanda Gordon, Heather Perlberg and Sonali Basak
·7-min read

(Bloomberg) -- Ray McGuire has dipped his toes into political arenas for more than a decade.

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He was floated as deputy Treasury secretary to Jack Lew under President Barack Obama. He was a finalist to become president of the influential Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2018. In his run for New York City mayor three years later, he lacked widespread support like the eventual winner, Eric Adams, who is now facing federal bribery and fraud charges.

But with the way things have shaken out in the unpredictable and unprecedented 2024 election, the 67-year-old president of Lazard Inc. is on the cusp of his greatest shot at parlaying Wall Street success into his next high-profile act.

That’s because, as much as anyone in finance, McGuire has had the trust of Vice President Kamala Harris as she mounted a hastened push for the Oval Office after Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race. He and his wife, Crystal McCrary McGuire, played a major role in introducing Harris to Wall Street VIPs in New York ahead of her first presidential campaign, and have been loyal supporters ever since, including over the past three months. (Crystal canvassed for Harris in Philadelphia just last weekend.)

If things break the right way for Harris, those close to her say, he could be a contender for a top appointment, potentially even Treasury secretary, which is one of just two Cabinet positions to have never been held by a Black person. McGuire, who started on Wall Street around the same time as JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon and spent much of his career climbing the ranks at Citigroup Inc., has been sensitive about his name being thrown around for the job, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations.

“He’s become a trusted adviser because he gives her good advice,” said Ken Chenault, the former CEO at American Express Co. “Whether Treasury or Commerce, Ray is someone who is very well-equipped to be successful in a range of the most senior jobs in a Democratic administration.”

McGuire and Lazard declined to comment for this story. The Harris campaign also declined to comment.

Earliest Supporters

McGuire and his wife were some of Harris’ earliest supporters in the business world; they hosted the then-California senator at their New York home in 2018 to hobnob with prominent Wall Street leaders and investors. The next year, he hosted a fundraiser for Harris in Manhattan along with Blair Effron of Centerview Partners and Avenue Capital Management’s Marc Lasry.

As vice president, she has returned to the McGuires’ Central Park West apartment for a handful of events since then, including in May for a gathering of women coordinated by Crystal in support of what was then the Biden-Harris ticket.

McGuire has given Harris advice over the years, ranging from the economy to her art collection. He has attended gatherings at her house, including one this year for Black male leaders. McGuire has worked to build support for Harris both publicly and privately, whether strategizing on conference calls or showing up at the Pennsylvania rally when Tim Walz was revealed as her running mate.

McGuire was also behind two days of meetings in mid-September that introduced Tony West and Brian Nelson, two advisers to Harris who are shaping her economic plan, to more of the New York business community at Lazard’s New York offices, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

Alongside McGuire’s partner at Lazard, CEO Peter Orszag, more than 100 economists and executives from top businesses shuffled in and out of meetings to give the Democratic candidate a better view on how to deal with top issues facing the corporate world.

“You can put him in front of anyone and he can connect with them, hold their attention and earn their trust,” Chenault said of McGuire. “He’s someone who will give you his best thinking, and he’ll explain his rationale for coming to that conclusion or perspective.”

Modest Circumstances

McGuire rose to Wall Street from modest circumstances. And like the Democratic presidential nominee, he knows the obstacles she has already overcome — and still faces.

Raised by a single mother and his grandparents in Dayton, Ohio, McGuire earned a scholarship to the prestigious Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, and then attended Harvard University for college, law and business degrees.

“He has the relationships, high and low,” said Deborah Wright, who sat on Citigroup’s board and has known McGuire since his first year at Harvard. “He grew up in these neighborhoods and therefore knows what they need, and also has the credibility to walk into financial institutions and other places.”

Throughout his four-decade Wall Street career, which has included stints at First Boston Corp., Wasserstein Perella, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, McGuire has balanced self-confidence with acknowledgement of where he started.

Harvard takes “the cream of the crop — I pride myself on being the film off the top of the cream,” he said in one of his first Wall Street job interviews, according to a 2023 address to the graduating class of Harvard Business School. “The metaphor got me the job.”

Still, he said, “I encountered every imaginable obstacle: embarrassment, classism, racism.”

As he became a prominent executive on Wall Street, advising on hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate transactions, he sought to mentor both those in finance and politics, including Compass Inc. co-founder Robert Reffkin and Maryland Governor Wes Moore. At Citigroup, where he rose to vice chairman, McGuire was known to bring analysts and associates to his corner office, demanding they be on their A-game about their business and the company — a rite of passage for mentorship.

But during the Covid pandemic, frustrated by the US stock market’s surge while many others suffered, he left Citigroup and ran for mayor of New York — his first try at elected office after decades of serving on boards of the city’s nonprofits.

He set out to address wealth inequality and take on politicans who he said had “become the gatekeepers of poverty.” It didn’t land.

“The packaging didn’t work,” McGuire said in the 2023 speech. “The neighborhood didn’t trust the corporate world.”

Laurie Tisch, the finance chair of McGuire’s mayoral campaign, said he thinks carefully about every word he says — an important trait for a government leader.

“He doesn’t just fill up the air with words,” she said.

Public Service

Still, people close to McGuire said, he’s been quick to brush off speculation of a high-level position in a Harris administration when it comes up. He’s focused on Lazard, and sees himself as already functioning as a quasi-public servant as a board member of nonprofits including the Black Trustee Alliance for Art Museums, the New York Public Library, the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

That said, if he were selected for a role in Washington, he’d be by Harris’ side, the people who know him said. In addition to his banking background, McGuire is an advocate of public-private partnerships and has global ties that stretch from New York to Saudi Arabia to Beijing.

“He’s demonstrated an interest in public service, but I’d hate to see him leave New York,” said Kathy Wylde, CEO of Partnership for New York City. “Over the years, I think we’ve done best when there are people who’ve truly understood the financial sector in those key positions in Washington.”

While Wall Street knowledge is key at Treasury, leading the department also involves navigating political tensions and serving as an economic diplomat across the globe. Donald Trump’s pick, Steven Mnuchin, was a rare example of a secretary with no prior governmental experience. (John Paulson and Scott Bessent, two of the top contenders to head Trump’s Treasury if he wins, also have spent their careers outside the public sector.)

Other executives that Harris is close to, who could be in the conversation for a Cabinet position, include Chenault, Effron and Orszag. The vice president lunched with Dimon in March.

Among those already in the Biden administration, Wally Adeyemo, the Treasury deputy secretary, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard are viewed as potential Treasury secretaries, Bloomberg has reported.

As for McGuire, in his speech to newly minted Harvard MBAs, he offered an explanation of why he took his job at Lazard — one that could be a description of why a Cabinet role would appeal to him.

“I wanted a platform that was global. I wanted to be in a leadership role,” McGuire said. “I wanted to make certain that I would have the visibility, availability, accessibility to continue to have an impact.”

--With assistance from Saleha Mohsin and Laura Davison.

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