Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani has strengthened his administration with appointments spanning ethnic and community media, workforce development and public health, bringing experienced professionals into key positions across New York City government.
Our Bureau
New York, NY
New York Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani has announced a series of appointments aimed at strengthening the city’s engagement with its diverse communities, expanding pathways to good jobs and reinforcing public health leadership.
The appointments include journalist and community media entrepreneur Mazin Sidahmed as Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office of Ethnic and Community Media, the reappointment of Doug Lipari as Executive Director of the Office of Talent and Workforce Development, known as NYC Talent, and the appointment of physician and former New York City Health Commissioner Dr Dave A. Chokshi to the NYC Board of Health.
Together, the appointments highlight three areas that are central to the administration’s stated priorities: ensuring government information reaches New Yorkers across linguistic and community lines, connecting residents with economic opportunities and strengthening the city’s public health infrastructure.
Sidahmed, co-founder and executive director of Documented, brings nearly 15 years of experience in journalism and community media. Documented is a multilingual nonprofit newsroom serving immigrant New Yorkers in English, Spanish, Chinese and Haitian Creole.
In his new role, Sidahmed will oversee paid media placement and marketing efforts across city agencies, with a focus on ethnic and community media outlets and ensuring information about city services reaches residents regardless of the language they speak or the community they belong to.
“City services only matter if they reach the people who need them,” Mamdani said, stressing the importance of communicating with New Yorkers through trusted local platforms.
The Mayor’s Office of Ethnic and Community Media was established under Local Law 83 of 2021 and is the first mayoral office of its kind in the United States. The law requires each mayoral agency to seek to direct at least 50 per cent of its total advertising spending to ethnic and community media outlets.
For New York’s large immigrant and multilingual population, that policy gives community newspapers, radio programmes and other local media an important role in connecting residents with government.
Sidahmed said his experience at Documented had been based on creating a connection between immigrant New Yorkers and services that they may not otherwise know about.
“I created Documented to be the connective tissue between immigrant New Yorkers and the often lifesaving services that many are unaware of,” he said. He added that he was looking forward to continuing that work across the city while helping ethnic and community media organisations thrive.
Sidahmed previously worked as a reporter at The Guardian and The Daily Star in Lebanon. His journalism and community media work has received several awards, including the Edward R. Murrow, Deadline Club, Online Journalism and LION awards.
Mamdani has also reappointed Doug Lipari to lead NYC Talent, where he will oversee efforts to develop an inclusive economy centred on access to good jobs.
Lipari joined NYC Talent in 2023 and played a key role in launching Community Hiring, an initiative that uses the city’s purchasing power to create employment pathways and union apprenticeships for low-income New Yorkers, including NYCHA residents and working-class communities.
He also leads the city’s negotiations of Project Labor Agreements covering billions of dollars in construction projects. The agreements are intended to control costs while ensuring fair wages and benefits and creating pathways into union construction careers.
“Doug has spent years making sure that when the City spends money, New Yorkers get something back — good jobs, fair wages and real pathways into economic security,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani appointed Dr Dave A. Chokshi to the NYC Board of Health, with the City Council approving the appointment on September 10. Chokshi will serve the remainder of a six-year term expiring May 31, 2030.
Chokshi previously served as New York City’s 43rd Health Commissioner and Chair of the Board of Health. He is also a practising physician at Bellevue Hospital and currently serves as Sternberg Family Professor and Founding Director of the Health & Opportunity Leadership Institute at the City College of New York.
His previous tenure as health commissioner included the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its vaccination campaign, testing and treatment strategies and the reopening of schools and the economy.
Current Health Commissioner Dr Alister F. Martin said Chokshi would bring decades of experience at the city, state and federal levels to the Board.
Chokshi said returning to the Board was an honour, describing it as an institution that had safeguarded New Yorkers for more than two centuries.