Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced two top cabinet appointees on Friday, including former President Joe Biden’s acting labor secretary and a Mayor Eric Adams’ housing executive.
Leila Bozorg, the city’s current executive director for housing and a key proponent of Adams’ signature housing achievement the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, will take on the role of deputy mayor for housing and planning. Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su will take on the newly created role of deputy mayor for economic justice.
“Leila Borzog will carry out our commitment to build more housing, protect tenants, and tackle this crisis head-on,” said Mamdani in a statement. “And with Julie Su serving as deputy mayor for economic justice, City Hall will lead the fight for fair wages, worker protections, and a city that delivers dignity for all.”
Su was known to be a strong advocate for workers’ rights and a friend to organized labor in her role as acting labor secretary, which she held for two years. In that position, Su implemented the American Rescue Plan’s Special Financial Assistance program and joined the bargaining table to help negotiate major contracts on behalf of Boeing workers, U.S. Maritime Alliance longshoremen, and other unions and employers.
Mamdani has tapped her for a new role focused on protecting “working New Yorkers and consumers, delivering on an agenda that makes the city more affordable.”
“The North Star of our work will be the rights and dignity of New York City’s workers,” Su said in a statement. “The working New Yorkers who keep this city that never sleeps alive and beating deserve dignity, respect, and the protections of the law, and I am excited to deliver bold solutions that strengthen worker and consumer protections and make our city a place where everyone can thrive.”
Prior to her role in the Biden administration, Su served as California labor commissioner.
Bozorg will take on the high-level cabinet position that Maria Torres-Springer previously held under Adams. In her current role, she coordinates agencies like Housing Preservation and Development, Housing Development Corporation and the New York City Housing Authority with the mayor’s office.
Bozorg, who lives in Manhattan with her wife, has led a career that has bounced back and forth between housing planning roles in New York City government and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Obama administration, where she played a key part in the program that allows traditional public housing to partner with private developers and operators.
“It is an incredible honor to join the Mayor-elect’s incoming administration and build upon my work tackling the housing crisis…” said Bozorg in a statement. “I am excited to roll up my sleeves to develop new strategies that will deliver on the mayor-elect’s bold housing agenda.”
