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Angelina Ramirez, a senior manager at American Express, has accepted the job as the new executive director of the Washington Heights BID.
The Washington Heights Business Improvement District has a new executive director.
The Department of Small Business Services, which oversees the city’s 64 BIDs, announced on Mon., Aug. 23 that Angelina Ramirez, 35, a senior manager of global client relationships at American Express for the past two years, had accepted the top job at the BID.
“We have an outstanding individual who brings a great deal of management, operations and marketing experience, along with a proven track record of alliance-building and communications expertise,” said Department of Small Business Services Commissioner Robert Walsh. “I am confident Angelina will hit the ground running and help re-build this organization to best serve Washington Heights and its businesses.”
The BID serves 255 commercial storefronts in a strip that runs for four blocks along W. 181st Street from Audubon Avenue to Ft. Washington Avenue, as well as smaller strips of St. Nicholas Avenue and Broadway.
It has an annual budget of $517,000 – one fifth of which went to paying the salary of former executive director George Sanchez. The rest went to providing the supplementary sanitation services and working with city agencies, elected officials, business, and property owners to enhance the commercial district.
In a heated meeting at the end of May, which included people who claimed to be members of the board who were in fact not and ultimately led the board chair, Vincent Apicella, to storm out of the office, the remaining members voted to not renew the contract of Sanchez. Prior to that meeting a committee of board members spent a month examining the BID’s finances and met with local business owners – many of whom claimed to never have even met Sanchez.
The report found that the BID spent too little on supplementary sanitation services in the district and had done a poor job developing relationships with local businesses.
Critics of Sanchez, whose primary residence is in Pennsylvania, said he spent little time in the district and touted programs for merchants that they were either unaware of or had little access to.
Ramirez, who takes the reins from Interim Director Andrew Flamm, will be tasked with rewriting the budget of the BID, and possibly finding a new office. It is currently located in a building owned by Apicella.
“There are a lot of things to accomplish, and it will be a tough job – but I believe Ms. Ramirez has the experience, capabilities, and the work ethic to be successful in this position,” said Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez. “Residents of Washington Heights can look forward to cleaner streets, an improved streetscape, and more economic development on and around W. 181st Street.”
According to the LinkedIn profile, prior to working at American Express, Ramirez was multicultural marketing manager at Pepsi Cola and customer marketing manager at PepsiCo.
She has a Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University.
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