The new NYPD commissioner, Thomas Donlon, was officially sworn in Friday, after the resignation of police chief Edward Caban.

Caban resigned after the FBI served him with a search warrant and took his phone.

What You Need To Know

  • The new NYPD commissioner, Thomas Donlon, was officially sworn in Friday

  • Donlon has directed security for the bank Credit Suisse and investment firm Blackrock

  • In 2020, Donlon launched his own security consulting firm

Mayor Eric Adams selected Donlon to be interim commissioner, following decades of experience in counterterrorism with the FBI and leading New York State’s homeland security.

The two men had met more than a decade ago, when Adams was a state senator and Donlon was the state’s security chief.

“He tended to act on situations very quickly and sometimes, speed is a lot more important than accuracy,” former Gov. David Paterson said.

Paterson nominated Donlon, a Bronx native, to the homeland security position.

“His attempt to address things quickly and resolve them gave us more opportunities to do the things we were sent there for,” Paterson told NY1.

In the private sector, Donlon was a security chief for major corporations until 2020. That’s when Donlon launched his own firm, Global Security Resolutions. In a statement announcing his new company, Donlon said “we recognize the client always comes first, and we are here to service and protect.”

The firm offered investigative services, security consulting and speakers. It produced a video featuring two of its well-known speakers — Jonathan Alpeyrie, a photojournalist who had been kidnapped and held hostage in Syria during its civil war, and Joseph Pistone, a retired FBI agent best known for his undercover name, Donnie Brasco.

Pistone — undercover as Brasco — infiltrated the mafia in New York.

“The purpose of it was for us to go to corporations and give talks about how to proceed in investigations,” Pistone said, describing his role in Donlon’s firm.

Pistone said he knew Donlon from his early days with the FBI during the 1970s.

“He’s very fair, and he’s very capable of conducting intricate investigations,” Pistone said.

Pistone said he thinks Donlon will do well leading the NYPD.

“I just can’t say enough about his professional abilities to run cases and to get along with people,” he said.