Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is assembling one of the broadest transition operations in modern city history, appointing more than 400 people across 17 committees to help steer his move into City Hall — including panels that have never existed under previous administrations.

The massive undertaking comes less than a month after Mamdani’s victory and just days after his unexpected, cordial meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House. Mamdani’s team says the committees will shape key appointments, policy direction, and a governing blueprint for his first term.

Mamdani’s committees span traditional policy areas such as housing, transportation, community safety, immigrant justice and economic development. But in a sharp departure from past transitions, he is creating new panels dedicated to Worker Justice and Community Organizing, a signal that labor power and grassroots activism will be central to his administration.

The committees mix unusual bedfellows: homeless outreach workers sitting beside real estate developers, union leaders meeting with corporate voices, and community organizers advising alongside economic strategists. Mamdani says this is intentional.

“New Yorkers have placed a great deal of hope and expectation in this new course that they’ve elected us to chart,” he said. “It is a hope that City Hall can deliver results that make material, tangible changes in the lives of working people across these five boroughs.”

The transition team has already been flooded with interest — more than 70,000 résumés have poured in since election night.

Bhairavi Desai, leader of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance — a union known for battling Uber, yellow cab medallion exploitation, and wage theft — will head the new Worker Justice committee. Desai said New York’s economy depends on labor that is undervalued and ignored.

“In a city with tourism, service and hospitality industries worth billions, the working class — which is largely people of color and immigrants — do the work that allows rest and leisure,” she said. “That labor, that dedication to excellence for our city, should be treated with respect.”

Monday’s announcement came just three days after Mamdani’s high-profile visit to the White House. Trump and Mamdani, who spent months trading insults on the campaign trail, shook hands, spoke warmly of each other’s goals, and claimed unexpected agreement on affordability and public safety.

Trump, who repeatedly threatened to send federal agents to New York during the campaign, said on Saturday that “other places need it more.” Mamdani would not confirm whether Trump agreed to stay out of New York policing, but said he made his stance clear: local safety would be handled by the NYPD, not federal troops.

Their unusually friendly tone stunned political watchers and could reshape budgets and negotiations as Mamdani’s administration forms.

With an army of advisers, unprecedented résumé submissions, and the national spotlight suddenly on his relationship with Washington, Mamdani is entering City Hall with both momentum and pressure.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)