Who is Lina Khan, co-chair of Mamdani's mayoral transition team?

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D) announced Wednesday that former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan will co-chair his transition team. 

Khan will lead the transition team alongside former New York City First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer (D), former New York City Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Melanie Hartzog, United Way of New York City CEO Grace Bonilla and Elana Leopold, an adviser to Mamdani’s campaign and aide to former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. 

In a statement, Khan said that by electing the 34-year-old democratic socialist, New Yorkers “sent a clear message this week that it’s time to build a city that working people can actually afford.”

Here are three things to know about Khan. 

Prior to FTC

After graduating from Williams College in 2010, Khan began her antitrust work as a fellow for the open markets program at New America, a think tank dedicated to policy solutions in education, economic security, technology and other areas. 

During her four years with New America, Khan researched “the concentration of power in America’s political economy and the evolution of antitrust laws,” according to her profile on the think tank’s website. She also reported on consolidation in agriculture, finance, technology, media and commodities.

In 2014, her final year at New America, Khan served as policy director for Zephyr Teachout’s New York gubernatorial campaign. 

Teachout, an antitrust lawyer, unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, whom Mamdani defeated twice en route to winning the mayoral race. Cuomo received 63 percent of the vote to Teachout’s 33 percent.

Khan then received her law degree from Yale in 2017, and worked in the office of former FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra, an appointee of President Trump and the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under former President Biden. 

She also worked as counsel to the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law, and served as an associate professor at Columbia Law School.

Tenure at FTC

In May 2021, Biden nominated Khan as FTC chair. She was confirmed by the Senate the next month via a 69-28 vote, making her the commission’s youngest chair in its century-plus history. 

While in the role, Khan took an aggressive posture toward reining in corporate power. Working with the Justice Department’s antitrust division, the FTC under Khan blocked dozens of deals and took on the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, Kroger and Ticketmaster.

Khan, citing the interest of consumers, sought to crack down on unfair business practices such as “junk fees” and mandatory arbitration clauses. 

Her work received praise from progressives, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and conservative populists, such as then-Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). It also garnered the ire of Wall Street. 

During an interview with The New York Times in June, Khan expanded on her antitrust philosophy, saying that “antimonopoly as a philosophy and framework really adopts a skeptical posture toward unchecked concentrations of economic power.” 

“There was just a recognition that there are all sorts of artificial ways that people’s liberty is being constrained because of unchecked corporate power, and if the FTC is going to take that on, that’s going to be very popular and materially improve people’s lives,” Khan added.

Time since FTC

Since departing the FTC upon Trump taking office, Khan returned to Columbia Law. According to the school’s website, Khan taught a public economic law course this past spring, and is currently teaching courses in antitrust and trade regulation and law and economic governance. 

She is scheduled to teach public economic law again in the spring.

Now, she is co-heading the transition for Mamdani, who is soon to become the youngest mayor in New York City history. 

“What we saw last night was New Yorkers not just electing a new mayor, but clearly a politics where outside corporate power and money clearly dictate our politics,” Khan said at a press conference Wednesday.

Saying that Mamdani had a “clear mandate for change,” Khan said she and her co-chairs will “make sure that we’re building an administration that can hit the ground running on day one and deliver for all New Yorkers.”