Exec director of Harlem nonprofit WHDC, which is accused of squandering millions, previously ran caf, has no experience

An alleged racist with no experience of fund management is in charge of the embattled West Harlem Development Corporation’s $56 million endowment, The Post has learned.Zead Ramadan, 57, managed a cafe in Upper Manhattan and had a business selling sandwiches at coffee stations at Columbia University hospitals before being appointed as executive director of the WHDC in 2020.This year, he was accused by one colleague of making racist remarks and by two women of harassing and verbally abusing them in a federal lawsuit, which WHDC has denied.As revealed by The Post, the nonprofit, formed in 2009, has been accused of mismanagement and squandering “a generational opportunity” over the $96 million it has been handed over 15 years by Columbia University to improve the lives of residents in Manhattanville to account for its campus expanding into the area.No major construction or long-term projects have been started by WHDC.

Its assets have dwindled to just over $56 million, housed in an investment account at First Boston, where it earns just over $2 million in interest a year, according to the group’s federal filings.The interest amount is around the same as the nonprofit awards each year to community groups — staging a music festival and buying turkeys for local residents at Thanksgiving, among other activities — which means the pot isn’t growing.According to its 2024 federal tax filings, WHDC shelled out $173,000 in “investment management fees,” over the previous year.Although the exact terms of how the fund can be used have not been disclosed, if WHDC had invested even just its initial check for $17 million from the university into a stock market tracker and left it, then it would be worth some $205 million today, according to trackerin2013dollars.comRamadan, who was already on the board of WHDC, was appointed its executive director in 2020, after what board members told The Post was an “exhaustive” cross-country search, employing a consultant at mor...