Frank Carone’s lobbying firm isn’t a lobbying firm anymore

Frank Carone left City Hall after just one year as chief of staff to Eric Adams and cashed in on his connection to mayor by building up lobbying and public affairs shop Oaktree Solutions. Now that Adams is out of power, everyone’s leafing Oaktree.

In the past few months, former Gov. Kathy Hochul aide Jeff Lewis has gone to Accenture, MirRam vet Onida Coward Mayers left to launch her own firm, Dan Tietz joined Kline Public Strategies and Matthew Quinonez went to the MTA. Former “Nightlife Mayor” Ariel Palitz and de Blasio admin aide Josh Sidis are also gone. In fact, the whole lobbying operation is done for.

Soon after Zohran Mamdani took office as mayor, The New York Times finally broke the long rumored federal investigation into Carone into public view in January. Oaktree’s leadership list was scrubbed from its website around then. So it’s not even clear who still works with the firm – since the core team were all independent contractors, rather than full-time employees. 

Carone has kept the business going until recently. City lobbying records show Oaktree had been paid monthly lobbying retainers through March 31 by clients including Brooklyn Storehouse, an event venue in the Navy Yard, and by Destination Tomorrow, an LGBTQ+ center in the South Bronx. Records also show Oaktree lobbied the Department of Homeless Services about a shelter contract earlier this year, and lobbied council members on the budget for the nonprofit Center for Employment Opportunities. 

Carone brushed off the turnover in a text, saying Oaktree is “going stronger than ever.” He said the core business is venture consulting, similar to Tusk Ventures or Teneo, and that the now-shuttered lobbying side only accounted for 10% of revenue. And instead of working with city government, he now wants to work against it – at least in his personal capacity.

“I’m going to do as much as I can to make sure Mamdani is a one-term mayor,” he said.