New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has named Lina Khan as the next chair of the city’s Economic Development Board (EDB) and longtime city government official Tony Shorris as the next leader of the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), marking major changes at one of New York’s most influential agencies.
Khan, who previously chaired the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) during the Biden administration, has been a close adviser to the mayor. She was the youngest person to chair the FTC and the first of south Asian descent, focusing on antitrust and antimonopoly enforcement.
Khan earned her JD from Yale Law School in 2017 and currently works as an associate professor at Columbia Law School. She also played an early role in reviewing candidates for the EDC president position.
Khan described her new role as a “deep honor” at a Wednesday press conference.
“I know from my own time in government that you need the right people in key roles if you want to get anything done. You need people who can be maximally resourceful and innovative, using the full scope of an agency’s tools to fully deliver for the people we serve,” she said, adding that she was excited to begin working “to make sure that the EDC can deliver an economy for our city that is affordable, efficient, and resilient”.
Shorris first joined the New York City government in 1979, more than a decade before Mamdani was born. He now serves as a partner at McKinsey & Co and is returning to public service to head the city’s economic development arm.
Shorris reflected on his first meeting with Mamdani in the fall of 2025, saying he was inspired by the mayor’s vision for New York and the “values that animated his campaign”.
The EDC, a non-profit that serves as New York City’s official economic development agency, oversees more than 60m sq ft of property as the city’s largest landlord. Its capital division is responsible for roughly 100 active projects representing about $6bn in construction investment.
The appointments represent a significant leadership shake-up at the EDC, an agency that has faced criticism over the years for being too closely aligned with business interests. Its board is responsible for approving major projects and deals, including Hudson Yards, the High Line, the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island, and the city’s ferry system.
Rather than appointing a deputy mayor for economic development, Mamdani had established the city’s first deputy mayor for economic justice, signaling a different approach to city hall’s role in economic development.
The new appointments also come as New York City is battling an outbreak of legionnaires’ disease, with a fifth person having died in connection to the illness in Manhattan’s Upper East Side, according to a briefing issued on Tuesday from the city’s health department.
The mayor gave an update on the outbreak during the Wednesday conference, explaining that the health department has reported a total of 82 cases of legionnaires’ disease, with five fatalities and 56 discharged patients. Thirteen cases were asymptomatic, and eight remain hospitalized, he said.
The source of the initial cluster, which had been traced to cooling towers in buildings on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, had been eliminated, Mamdani said, with no new cases in over a week.
He said that the administration had initiated “the most aggressive remediation and enforcement strategy that our city has ever taken to eliminate the source of Legionella bacteria”.
Mamdani added: “Going forward, the New York City health department will continue to report test results and inspect cooling towers, enforce rigorous maintenance and oversight regulations, and hold non-compliant building owners accountable.”
