Mamdani unveils all-woman team as he prepares to ‘Trump-proof’ New York

Fresh off winning New York’s mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani announced on Wednesday that a team including former city and federal officials – all women – would steer his transition to City Hall, and that he would “work every day to honour the trust that I now hold”.

“I and my team will build a City Hall capable of delivering on the promises of this campaign,” the mayor-elect said at a news conference, vowing that his administration would be both compassionate and capable.

He named political strategist Elana Leopold as executive director of the transition team. She will work with United Way of New York City President Grace Bonilla; former deputy mayor Melanie Hartzog, who was also a city budget official; former Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan; and former first deputy mayor Maria Torres-Springer.

With his win over former governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, the 34-year-old democratic socialist will soon become the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian heritage, the first born in Africa and the youngest mayor in more than a century.

He now faces the task of following through on his ambitious affordability agenda while navigating the bureaucratic challenges of City Hall and a hostile Trump administration.

“I’m confident in delivering these same policies that we ran on for the last year,” he said in an interview earlier on Wednesday on cable news channel NY1.