NYC Mayor-elect Mamdani taps ex-de Blasio deputy, campaign manager as top aides

Chris Sommerfeldt, New York Daily News on Nov 10, 2025

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NEW YORK — New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani unveiled his first two big City Hall hires Monday, tapping government expert Dean Fuleihan to be his top deputy and political confidant Elle Bisgaard-Church to serve as his chief of staff.

The appointments of Fuleihan, a 74-year-old alumni of the administration of former Mayor Bill de Blasio, and Bisgaard-Church, a 34-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America who served as Mamdani’s campaign manager, showcase how the mayor-elect, also 34, plans to build out his City Hall team with a blend of seasoned municipal technocrats and younger, ideologically aligned allies.

“I hope their reputations and records of accomplishment are proof of intent to deliver tangible change,” Mamdani said at a news conference with Fuleihan and Bisgaard-Church on the Upper East Side. “This is a moment of opportunity that comes along rarely, and we seize upon it to usher in a new day for New York.”

As Mamdani’s first deputy mayor and chief of staff, Fuleihan and Bisgaard-Church will quickly have their hands full.

Mamdani, who is set to be sworn in Jan. 1 as New York City’s youngest mayor in more than a century, told reporters he didn’t have exact portfolios in mind for either Fuleihan or Bisgaard-Church yet. But he said he expects both of them to play “key” roles in executing the ambitious policy promises he campaigned on.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist, won the Nov. 4 mayoral election after pledging to tackle the city’s cost of living crisis by freezing the rent for the city’s 2 million stabilized tenants, vastly expanding subsidized child care and making public buses free — proposals that would require action from the governor and the state Legislature. To pay for such initiatives, Mamdani has proposed jacking up taxes on millionaires and corporations, initiatives that would also require state-level action.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, a moderate Democrat who’s facing a competitive reelection race next year, has been critical of the idea of raising taxes in 2026 and signaled over the weekend she’s also conceptually skeptical of Mamdani’s free bus plan, potentially throwing a wrench into his agenda.

But Fuleihan, who served as de Blasio’s first deputy for four years and was the state Assembly’s top budget honcho for decades before that, said he’s confident in the momentum behind Mamdani’s policy pushes.

“This is an agenda that’s achievable,” said Fuleihan, who was de Blasio’s City Hall budget director when the ex-mayor secured state funding to create the city’s “Pre-K for All” program in 2014. “We have to work on how to make sure that we come to those agreements.”

As first deputy, Fuleihan will help manage the day-to-day operations of city government and also serve as acting mayor when Mamdani’s out of town.

Fuleihan’s elevation was praised even by some Mamdani skeptics, including Rep. Ritchie Torres, a centrist Bronx Democrat who supported Mamdani’s main mayoral race opponent, ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“There are few people on earth who know the workings of city and state government as deeply as Dean Fuleihan,” Torres wrote on X, calling his appointment “exceptional.”

De Blasio, who has been informally advising Mamdani, also hailed the pick. “Literally the perfect choice,” the ex-mayor told the New York Daily News. “Tremendous skill and experience combined with philosophical alignment.”

Where Fuleihan can be seen as a symbol of the city’s old government guard, Bisgaard-Church is cut from the same cloth as Mamdani.

A dues-paying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, Bisgaard-Church in late 2024 became Mamdani’s mayoral campaign manager after having served as the chief of staff in his Assembly office since 2021. She’s widely credited with being a big influence on Mamdani’s populist policy agenda and has been extensively involved in working on his transition team.

At the news conference, Mamdani called her his team’s “moral compass, our brilliant strategic center and a genuinely kind and selfless person.”

“We will work relentlessly to make good on our campaign promises,” Bisgaard-Church said.

Fuleihan is among a number of de Blasio administration alums who have become part of Mamdani’s team since his election.

Melanie Hartzog, de Blasio’s former deputy mayor for health and human services, is co-chairing Mamdani’s transition team, whose executive director is Elana Leopold, another de Blasio administration veteran.

During the campaign, Cuomo, a longtime de Blasio nemesis, claimed Mamdani would be “de Blasio 2.0” if elected.

Mamdani, who has name-checked de Blasio as the best mayor in his lifetime, said Monday that his appointment of Fuleihan is not about re-creating the past.

“It is not a City Hall that looks to any previous administration as a model that we will take on word for word, step for step,” he said. “We are making our own.”