by XUEER LUDECEMBER 13, 2024, 6:00 AM (MissionLocal.org)
Newly elected mayor Daniel Lurie addresses a crowd in Chinatown. Photo on Nov. 8, 2024 by Abigail Van Neely.
Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie yesterday announced his first batch of appointments, naming three key roles in the mayor’s office: longtime former San Francisco Giants executive Staci Slaughter as chief of staff, his mayoral campaign senior advisor Matthew Goudeau as deputy chief of staff, and his campaign manager Han Zou, as director of public affairs.
Prior to Lurie’s appointment, the mayor-elect also revealed his plan to overhaul the mayor’s office and bring in four policy chiefs to serve as his deputy-like mayors. The 1991 Proposition H forbade deputy mayors and regulated salaries of deputy-like aides to 70 percent of the mayor’s salary. In the pre-1991 system, the deputies supervised city departments and that is what Lurie’s yet-to-be-announced aides will do as well.
As Lurie rolls out more details about his administration, we are keeping track of the appointments on this live page, which will be updated with each new appointment. You will be able to see the comings and goings at the major city departments and the mayor’s office as they happen.
The page was last updated on Dec. 13.
Existing officials during Breed administration
Lurie appointees
Click on the photos to read more about them and their appointments.
Mayor’s Office
Staci Slaughter
Chief of Staff
Matthew Goudeau
Deputy Chief of Staff
Han Zou
Director of Public Affairs
Unknown
Chief of Public Safety
Unknown
Chief of Housing and Economic Development
Unknown
Chief of Public Health and Wellbeing
Unknown
Chief of Infrastructure, Climate and Mobility
Maryam Muduroglu
Chief of Protocol
Tom Paulino
Liaison to the Board of Supervisors
Sophia Kittler
Budget Director
Eileen Mariano
State & Federal Legislative Affairs
Andres Power
Policy Director
Lisa Gluckstein
Housing Advisor
Katherine Chu
Police Alternatives Advisor
Victor Ruiz-Cornejo
LGBTQ & Small Business Advisor
Shalini Rana
Health & Human Services Advisor
Alex Sweet
Transportation Advisor
Joseph Sweiss
Environment Advisor
Major Department Heads
Jeffrey Tumlin
SFMTA
William “Bill” Scott
Police
Sandy Tong
Fire
Rich Hillis
Planning
Patrick O’Riordan
Bulding Inspection
Grant Colfax
Public Health
Carla Short
Public Works
Shireen McSpadden
Homelessness and Supportive Housing
Daniel Adams
Housing
Sarah Dennis Phillips
OEWD
Trent Rhorer
Human Services Agency
Dennis J. Herrera
Public Utilities
Mike Nakornkhet
Airport
Elaine Forbes
Port
Transition Team
Sara Fenske Bahat
Transition Director
Ann O’Leary
Transition Counsel
Ben Rosenfield
Senior Advisor
Sam Altman
Co-chair
Joanne Hayes-White
Co-chair
José A. Quiñonez
Co-chair
Ned Segal
Co-chair
Michael Tubbs
Co-chair
Nancy Tung
Co-chair
Paul Yep
Co-chair
Chief of Staff
Staci Slaughter
Mayor’s Office
Announced by Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie on Dec. 12, 2024.
Slaughter has four years of city hall experience as a press secretary for former Mayor Frank Jordan from 1992 to 1996. Jordan endorsed Lurie for mayor in this election. Slaughter’s experience has mostly been in the private sector. The bulk of her experience has been her 28 years with the San Francisco Giants, including two years as the senior executive advisor and almost 26 years as the executive vice president, communications and senior advisor to the CEO. Most recently, Slaughter has been a board member of Bay Football Club, also known as the Bay FC, which is the new National Women’s Soccer League franchise representing the Bay Area. Back ↑
Current Chief of Staff
Sean Elsbernd has been Mayor Breed’s chief of staff since she took office in July 2018. He started his City Hall career in 2001 as the legislative aide for former District 7 Supervisor Tony Hall. When former Mayor Gavin Newsom was elected, Elsbernd was picked as his initial liaison to the Board of Supervisors. In August 2004, then-Mayor Newsom appointed Elsbernd to a vacancy on the Board of Supervisors. Elsbernd was later elected and re-elected as District 7 Supervisor for two terms from 2004 to 2012. After Elsbernd termed out in 2012, the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein appointed him to be her state director. He remained in that job until Breed picked him to helm her ship. Back ↑
Deputy Chief of Staff
Matthew Goudeau
Mayor’s Office
Announced by Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie on Dec. 12, 2024.
Goudeau has been the senior advisor for Lurie’s mayoral campaign since March 2024. Currently, he serves as director at the office of the Mayor-elect. For over two decades, Goudeau held key roles under five mayoral administrations, including at the mayor’s office of protocols since the Willie Brown administration. Goudeau was also the director for almost two years at Grants for the Arts, which is a city department that provides grants for arts and culture organizations across the city.
Current Deputy Chief of Staff
Andrea Bruss has been serving as Mayor Breed’s deputy chief of staff since she took office in July 2018. Bruss already had 11 years of City Hall experience when she was picked by Breed as her deputy chief of staff in July 2018. Prior to her post, Bruss served as legislative aide to Breed while Breed was the District 5 Supervisor and legislative aide to former District 10 supervisor Malia Cohen for five years, from 2011 to 2016. Back ↑
Director of Public Affairs
Han Zou
Mayor’s Office
Announced by Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie on Dec. 12, 2024.
Zou has been the campaign manager for Lurie’s mayoral campaign since May 2024. Previously, Zou was known in the political scene as the door-knocking genius who helped Assemblymember Matt Haney sway Asian voters in his winning assembly race in 2022 and, before that, his District 6 supervisor race in 2018. In this election, Zou, along with Kit Lam, the campaign’s Chinese community-outreach lead and a school board recall activist, helped create a landslide victory among Asian voters. As Mission Local’s Yujie Zhou reported, almost every heavily Asian precinct marked Lurie as their first choice, including neighborhoods such as the Sunset, the Richmond, the Excelsior, Portola, Visitacion Valley, and Chinatown. Back ↑
Chief of Public Safety
This is a new position. To be appointed. Back ↑
Chief of Housing and Economic Development
This is a new position. To be appointed. Back ↑
Chief of Public Health and Wellbeing
This is a new position. To be appointed. Back ↑
Chief of Infrastructure, Climate and Mobility
This is a new position. To be appointed. Back ↑
Chief of Protocol
Maryam Muduroglu
Mayor’s Office
Started the role in November 2022.
Muduroglu was picked for the job which, for 50 years, was filled by the late Charlotte Mailliard Shultz. Since 2020, Muduroglu has been a member of the leadership council at Tipping Point Community, a nonprofit organization founded by current Mayor Daniel Lurie. Prior to her appointment, Muduroglu worked in healthcare information technology for a decade before serving on boards for various organizations such as the San Francisco Opera, the Bay School of San Francisco, and children’s shelters. Back ↑
Liaison to the Board of Supervisors
Tom Paulino
Mayor’s Office
Started the role in October 2021.
Prior to this job, Paulino was the district director for Assemblymember David Chiu for three years from 2018 to 2021. Paulino also worked for the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein for about four years from 2014 to 2018. Paulino is the third person to hold this job under Breed. When Breed first came into office in July 2018, she appointed Kanishka Cheng, who left the job in April 2019 and became Breed’s director of commission affairs and, later, the founder of political nonprofit TogetherSF and its action group, TogetherSF Action, which supported mayoral candidate Mark Farrell and Proposition D, a ballot measure to reform city commissions. (Both lost.) Back ↑
Mayor’s Budget Director
Sophia Kittler
Mayor’s Office
Started the role in June 2024.
Kittler has more than seven years of experience at City Hall. She began her career working as a legislative aide to former District 10 supervisor Malia Cohen for two years from 2017 to 2019. Kittler then became the policy advisor for Breed for four months before she became Breed’s liaison to the Board of Supervisors from 2019 to 2021. Later, Kittler moved on to become the director of Breed’s Office of Innovation. Back ↑
Manager of State and Federal Legislative Affairs
Eileen Mariano
Mayor’s Office
Started the role in August 2023.
Mariano started her job at the mayor’s office in January 2022 as the youth and families advisor for Breed. She then became the manager of state and federal affairs for Breed in August 2023. Mariano is the granddaughter of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Back ↑
Mayor’s Policy Director
Andres Power
Mayor’s Office
Started the role in July 2018.
Power has more than 18 years of government experience in San Francisco. Before being appointed as the policy director for Breed when she took office in July 2018, Power worked for seven months for interim Mayor Mark Farrell as senior advisor and liaison to the board of supervisors. Prior to that, Power worked for late Mayor Ed Lee as senior advisor for seven months in 2017, and chief of staff for former supervisor, and now state senator, Scott Wiener for almost five years from February 2012 to December 2016. Power’s City Hall career started at the Planning Department, where he worked for almost six years as a project manager for pavement to parks, a city’s program to create more accessible and community-serving public spaces. Back ↑
Land Use and Housing Advisor
Lisa Gluckstein
Mayor’s Office
Started the role in January 2022.
Prior to becoming Breed’s go-to person for land use and housing issues, Gluckstein worked for two years as a land-use attorney in San Francisco from 2019 to 2021 and was an urban development and accessibility fellow for the World Resources Institute in Mexico City for a year between 2018 and 2019. Back ↑
Police Alternatives Advisor
Katherine Chu
Mayor’s Office
Started the role in February 2022.
Prior to the role at the mayor’s office, Chu started her career in the city as a commissioner at the San Francisco Juvenile Probation Commission for about a year from 2021 to 2022. Before working for the city, Chu worked as an attorney in the East Bay, including working as the deputy city attorney in Oakland from 2021 to 2022 and an attorney at the East Bay Family Defenders for about three years from 2018 to 2021. Back ↑
LGBTQ and Small Business Advisor
Victor Ruiz-Cornejo
Mayor’s Office
Started the role in December 2019.
Before working for Breed, Ruiz-Cornejo worked for state Sen. Scott Wiener beginning in January 2016 for Wiener’s senatorial campaign. Ruiz-Cornejo worked as the director of field operations for Wiener’s campaign for a year and continued working in Sen. Wiener’s office when he was elected. Ruiz-Cornejov then spent three years at Sen. Wiener’s office. He started out as the deputy district director until August 2018 when he switched his role to be the communications director where he remained until December 2019. Back ↑
Health and Human Services Advisor
Shalini Rana
Mayor’s Office
Started the role in November 2019.
Before Rana became Breed’s policy advisor for health and human services issues, she worked for five years at Metta Fund, a nonprofit in San Francisco offering caregiving and fostering community and belonging for the elderly. Back ↑
Transportation Advisor
Alex Sweet
Mayor’s Office
Started the role in August 2020.
Before Sweet became the transportation advisor for Breed, she worked for four years from 2016 to 2020 at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, a transportation system planning and design firm that SFMTA head Jeffrey Tumlin worked for 22 years. Back ↑
Environment Advisor
Joseph Sweiss
Mayor’s Office
Started the role in July 2023.
Before Sweiss was appointed as Breed’s policy advisor on climate, he was the spokesperson for the city’s public utilities commission for about a year from May 2022 to July 2023. He was also the vice chair for the city’s human rights commission for about four years from October 2018. He was briefly the interim chief of staff for District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey. Back ↑
Director of Transportation
Jeffrey Tumlin
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
Appointed by outgoing Mayor London Breed on Nov. 19, 2019.
Tumlin’s contract as the head of SFMTA expires this month and he is stepping down. Five years into his job, Tumlin was in the hot seat, facing a series of challenges including the problem-ridden Muni system and controversial bike lanes, as well as a projected $240 million department deficit starting in 2026. Tumlin was the former director of strategy at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, a transportation-system planning and design firm. Prior to his leading role at SFMTA, Tumlin had almost no experience managing city agencies or transit systems. The only exception was the nine months he spent in 2016 as interim director setting up Oakland’s Department of Transportation. Back ↑
Chief of Police
William “Bill” Scott
San Francisco Police Department
Sworn in by late Mayor Ed Lee on Jan. 23, 2017.
Previously, Scott served 27 years in the Los Angeles Police Department, where he rose to the rank of Deputy Chief. Back ↑
Interim Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department
Sandy Tong
San Francisco Fire Department
Appointed to the interim position by outgoing Mayor London Breed on Sept. 3, 2024.
Tong is the city’s first Asian fire chief, and first fire chief without a firefighting background. The department does not have a department head yet. Tong has 35 years of experience working in emergency medical services, and was the department’s deputy chief of emergency medical services and community paramedics. Prior to being named interim chief, Tong was the highest-ranking Chinese American within the department. Tong succeeded former chief Jeanine Nicholson, who abruptly announced her retirement on July 26, 2024. Back ↑
Planning Director
Rich Hillis
San Francisco Planning
Appointed by outgoing Mayor London Breed on Feb. 20, 2020.
Hillis has been serving as planning director since March 2020. Prior to leading the Planning Department, Hillis worked as the executive director for the Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture. Hillis also served as a planning commissioner from 2012 to 2019. Hillis replaced John Rahaim, who announced his retirement in September 2019 after working 12 years as the director of planning. Back ↑
Director of Department of Building Inspection
Patrick O’Riordan
Department of Building Inspection
Appointed on March 18, 2020, by the Building Inspection Commission.
O’Riordan, a former carpenter and a general contractor for the city from 1992 to 2000, joined the DBI in 2000 as a field inspector. He became chief building inspector in 2013 and stayed on the job for the next until he was appointed as DBI director in 2020 by the Building Inspection Commission. O’Riordan replaced predecessor Tom Hui, who was appointed head of DBI by Mayor Ed Lee in 2013. Hui was suspended in March 2020 for allegations of accepting gifts from developers. Back ↑
Director of Public Health
Grant Colfax
Department of Public Health
Appointed by outgoing Mayor London Breed in January 2019.
Dr. Colfax was trained at the University of California, San Francisco, and worked as Director of National AIDS Policy at the White House from 2012 to 2014 under the Obama Administration. During his time as the DPH head, Colfax guided the city through the Covid-19 pandemic. Back ↑
Director of Public Works
Carla Short
Department of Public Works
Appointed by outgoing Mayor London Breed on Nov. 8, 2023.
Prior to her role as director, Short served as interim director of Public Works, beginning in August 2021. Before that, Short was the superintendent of the city’s Bureau of Urban Forestry for eight years, from 2015 to 2023. The bureau is a division under Public Works that manages city-owned street trees. She worked her way up through the division, starting as an urban forester in 2004. Back ↑
Executive Director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing
Shireen McSpadden
Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing
Appointed by outgoing Mayor London Breed in April, 2021.
Before becoming the head of the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, McSpadden was the head of the Department of Disability and Aging Services for more than five years, from 2016 to 2021. Back ↑
Director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development
Daniel Adams
Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development
Appointed by outgoing Mayor London Breed on Jan. 16, 2024.
Prior to this role, Adams worked as her senior advisor for housing initiatives from 2021 to 2024. Adams has also worked in the mayor’s housing office for about nine years, as director of program development and a senior project manager from 2007 to 2013, and as deputy and acting director from 2017 to 2020. In between the two periods, Adams worked for housing developers for four years, including two years at MidPen Housing as housing development director, and two years at BRIDGE Housing as a real-estate development director. Adams succeeded Eric Shaw. Back ↑
Executive Director of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development
Sarah Dennis Phillips
Office of Economic and Workforce Development
Appointed by outgoing Mayor London Breed on May 31, 2023.
Prior to her role leading OEWD, Phillips worked as a senior director at the development firm of Tishman-Speyer and was formerly deputy director of development for Breed. Phillips started her role on June 12, 2023 and succeeded Kate Sofis, who was appointed by Breed as the managing director of the War Memorial and Performing Arts Center. Back ↑
Executive Director of the Human Services Agency
Trent Rhorer
Human Services Agency
Appointed by former Mayor Willie Brown in October 2000.
Rhorer’s post as the head of the city’s Human Services Agency started more than two decades ago, when he was appointed by then-Mayor Willie Brown. Back ↑
General Manager of the Public Utilities Commission
Dennis J. Herrera
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
Appointed by outgoing Mayor London Breed in April 2021.
Herrera joined the Public Utilities Commission in 2021 after serving as San Francisco City Attorney for nearly 20 years. Outgoing Mayor London Breed tapped Herrera in April 2021 after longtime former PUC head Harlan Kelly resigned in December 2023 to face federal bribery charges. In March 2024, Kelly was sentenced to federal prison for four years for six fraud and bribery charges. Back ↑
Airport Director
Mike Nakornkhet
San Francisco International Airport
Appointed by outgoing Mayor London Breed on Nov. 26, 2024.
Nakornkhet succeeded Ivar Satero, who worked at SFO for more than 40 years, and as the airport’s director since 2016. He is retiring at the end of 2024. Nakornkhet will remain at the Denver International Airport as its chief financial officer and executive vice president before he takes over Satero’s position. Prior to his role at the Denver International Airport, Nakornkhet worked at SFO for 13 years from 2008 to 2021, including eight years as SFO’s director of financial planning and analysis and acting managing director of finance from 2013 to 2021. Back ↑
Executive Director of the Port of San Francisco
Elaine Forbes
Port of San Francisco
Appointed by late Mayor Ed Lee in October 2016.
Forbes has almost 19 years of City Hall experience in San Francisco. She has been the executive director of the city’s port for eight years and, prior to this, she was the chief financial officer at the port for about five years. Before working for the city’s port, Forbes served for four years as the finance director for the Planning Department. Back ↑
Transition Director
Sara Fenske Bahat
Transition Team
Bahat managed the post-Sept. 11, 2001, recovery at the New York City Economic Development Corporation. There, Bahat worked from the perspective of New York’s relationship to the financial services sector. On Lurie’s campaign trail, Lurie said he counted Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s mayor from 2002 to 2013, as a model mayor. Lurie says he wants to revive San Francisco like Bloomberg rebuilt Manhattan after 9/11. Back ↑
Transition Counsel
Ann O’Leary
Transition TeamOn the state level, O’Leary led Governor-elect Gavin Newsom’s transition and served as Newsom’s first chief of staff. O’Leary led Newsom’s office through the state’s worst wildfires and the Covid-19 pandemic.On the federal level, O’Leary served as the senior policy advisor to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. O’Leary was also the legislative director for then-Sen. Hillary Clinton and policy advisor with the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Bill Clinton.
Transition Team Senior Advisor
Ben Rosenfield
Transition Team
Rosenfield, San Francisco’s “adult in the room,” stepped down as city controller only this February at the age of 50 after working at City Hall for nearly 27 years. During his time in city government, Rosenfield served as the mayor’s budget director for five years, and as the city controller for 16 years. Back ↑
Transition Team Co-chair
Sam Altman
Transition Team
Cofounder and CEO of OpenAI
Altman is the Cofounder and CEO of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence firm best known for ChatGPT. He is also the chairman of Helion, a fusion research company, and Oklo, a nuclear technology company. Altman was previously the president of Y Combinator from 2014 to 2019, a tech venture capital firm. In an interview, Lurie said he would work with Altman to bring AI into city government. Back ↑
Transition Team Co-chair
Joanne Hayes-White
Transition Team
Fire Chief of the San Francisco Fire Department from 2004 to 2019Hayes-White retired as the longest-serving chief in the department’s history and was then appointed to the State Board of Pilot Commission by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019, a body that licenses, trains, and regulates up to maritime pilots.During the Covid-19 pandemic, she served under the city’s Department of Emergency Management and recently worked as the Northern California Director for the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein until Feinstein’s passing.
Transition Team Co-chair
José A. Quiñonez
Transition Team
CEO of Mission Asset FundBased in the Mission District, Mission Asset Fund offers low-income families financial assistance including giving out loans to immigrants for their application fees, helping clients to build up their credit scores, and giving out loans to local small businesses.The nonprofit receives support from the Levi Strauss foundation, the corporate philanthropic arm of Levi Strauss & Co., to which Lurie is an heir.
Transition Team Co-chair
Ned Segal
Transition Team
Co-chair of Lurie’s mayoral campaign
Segal was most recently the chief financial officer of Twitter. He also serves on the board of Tipping Point Community, the nonprofit grantmaking organization that was founded by Lurie. Segal sits on the executive committee and leads the nonprofit’s fundraising of nearly $50 million every year. Back ↑
Transition Team Co-chair
Michael Tubbs
Transition Team
Former Stockton mayor
Tubbs was elected to the city council in Stockton at the age of 21 in 2013 and served as a council member until 2017. Tubbs then became the mayor of Stockton in 2017 at the age of 26 and served until 2021, when he was defeated in his reelection bid. Back ↑
Transition Team Co-chair
Nancy Tung
Transition Team
San Francisco prosecutor
Tung was elected as the chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party in April 2024, after winning a second term as a member of the county Democratic party. Tung has also been a prosecutor for 24 years and works in the San Francisco district attorney’s office. Back ↑
Transition Team Co-chair
Paul Yep
Transition Team
Retired commander of the San Francisco Police Department
Yep served as the commanding officer of the Richmond Station, Central Station, the Staff Services Division, and Northern Police Station. Yep endorsed Lurie for his mayoral bid in February 2024. Back ↑
