Gayle M. Horwitz is the President & CEO of the Battery Park City Authority. She has served in that position since October 2010. Prior to her appointment as President & CEO, Ms. Horwitz served as the Authority’s Chief Operating Officer. From 2007 to 2010 Ms. Horwitz served as First Deputy Comptroller to New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., and from 2002 to 2007 she served as Deputy Comptroller and Chief of Staff. Ms. Horwitz has devoted much of her career to public service and government and is considered a tough and tireless advocate for New Yorkers. As First Deputy Comptroller, Ms. Horwitz was responsible for managing the daily operations of the City’s Chief Fiscal Officer and a staff of more than 720 employees, a $66 million operating budget, a $36.5 million capital budget and a pension portfolio of more than $100 billion. Ms. Horwitz has examined all matters relating to or affecting the finances of the City, including auditing to expose waste, fraud and mismanagement, supervising the City’s accounting procedures, managing the pension fund investments, settling claims against the City, raising funds through debt issuance, and registering contracts and enforcing prevailing wage laws. She also served as the Comptroller’s Chief Procurement Officer with oversight responsibility for purchases of goods and services, and the implementation of management improvements and cost-savings measures to ensure the agency’s fiscal integrity. Before her tenure in the City Comptroller’s office, Ms. Horwitz served for five years as Special Assistant to the President of the New York City Board of Education, which ran the nation’s largest public school system with more than 1.1 million students, 130,000 employees and a $12 billion budget. She advised the President of the Board on all matters pertaining to budget, personnel and operations, drafted resolutions concerning major policy issues including technology, governance and bilingual education, and prepared testimonies, speeches and constituent correspondence. Ms. Horwitz served as Assistant Vice President at National Westminster Bancorp from 1993 to 1996, and from 1990 to 1993, as Deputy Director for Management, Planning and Analysis, and then as Director of Operations for the New York City Department of General Services. She also has conducted studies as a Research Scientist at New York University’s Urban Research Center, designed a fellowship program for young executive leadership for the New York City Partnership, analyzed jewelry sales trends and stock levels for Finlay Fine Jewelry, and achieved $2 million in sales while supervising, training and developing 25 sales associates at Macy’s New York. Ms. Horwitz served as a Lyndon B. Johnson Congressional Intern for U.S. Congressman Matthew F. McHugh in Washington, D.C., in 1984, and served in the Office of the Special Counsel to the Speaker and the Program and Committee Staff for the New York State Assembly in 1985. She served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in the 2002-2003 academic year. Ms. Horwitz received her Master’s Degree in Public Administration from NYU, graduating first in the Class of 1990. In 1986, she received an AB degree from Mount Holyoke College and graduated from The Taft School in Connecticut. In 1990, Ms. Horwitz was presented with NYU’s Major Raymond A. Lepesqueur Award for Highest Scholastic Standing. She received Service Excellence and Quality Improvement Achievement awards from the Department of General Services in 1993. Ms. Horwitz’s graduate thesis, “The Port of the Future,” was published in the Journal of Urban Technology in September 1992. Ms. Horwitz lives with her husband and two sons in Manhattan. She serves as a Trustee of Riverdale Temple, where she Co-Chairs the Education Committee.