The 20 appointments Mayor Daniel Lurie has made since winning the November election — 13 men and seven women — will enter an administration promising to clean up streets and slice through City Hall’s bureaucracy. 

Many of the hires aren’t typical bureaucrats, hailing instead from corporations, nonprofits, and philanthropic organizations. Some are political operatives; others are City Hall newbies. 

Here’s a look at Lurie’s administration and the patterns emerging among the mayor’s key hires.

For roughly two decades, Lurie cultivated connections within the city’s elite philanthropic circles through Tipping Point, his anti-poverty nonprofit that has dispersed hundreds of millions of dollars to various causes. 

One Tipping Point donor is Penny Coulter, who has been named as the mayor’s director of protocol. She has gifted at least $325,000 since 2011, according to Tipping Point’s impact reports. (The total could be larger since the impact reports disclose donations as part of a range.) Coulter is married to billionaire private equity executive James Coulter and is the president of the Coulter Family Foundation. She will be responsible for fundraising for the mayor’s foreign trips and acting as a cultural ambassador. 

Lurie also looked to Tipping Point’s board of directors to fill key advisory positions. Ned Segal, who was on the nonprofit’s board from 2021 to 2024, will serve as Lurie’s housing and economic development chief, a new role created as part of a shakeup of the mayor’s office structure. Segal and his wife have contributed at least $398,000 to Tipping Point since 2011.

Staci Slaughter is Lurie’s chief of staff. Her husband, Jamie, a partner at the boutique law firm Keker, Van Nest & Peters, joined Tipping Point’s board in December. The couple and Lurie’s deputy chief of staff, Matthew Goudeau, have also donated to Tipping Point — though on a much smaller scale than Coulter and Segal.

Lurie’s campaign, juiced by $8.6 million of his own money, brought on a bevy of political operatives and community organizers who wooed wealthy donors, helped secure the all-important Asian American vote, and spread his message pinning San Francisco’s problems on “City Hall insiders.” 

Seven of those campaign staffers are now part of his administration. 

They include Han Zou, Lurie’s director of public affairs, who previously worked for Rep. Lateefah Simon and Assemblymember Matt Haney and is considered a “doorknocking mastermind.” Kit Lam, Lurie’s AAPI community and press liaison, is known as the main force behind the recall of three school board members in 2022. Deputy chief of staff Goudeau, a longtime City Hall staffer who moves in philanthropic circles, was key in courting the city’s elite to support Lurie. 

Other hires include Moisés García, the mayor’s community liaison, who helped the campaign connect with LGBTQ and Latino groups; Aly Bonde, Lurie’s policy advisor, who led policy development; Annie Gabillet, the deputy communications director, who served as the campaign’s digital director; and Haakon Black, Lurie’s digital assistant and daily staffer.

Though Lurie cast himself as an outsider candidate, he has decided to retain a small group of current City Hall and other government workers. 

Adam Thongsavat, who previously worked in Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s office, will serve as the mayor’s board liaison. As Mandelman is now board president, that hire could facilitate access to the supervisors; former Mayor London Breed often had strained relations with the 11-member legislative body. 

Eileen Mariano, granddaughter of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, will stay on as state and federal affairs manager. And, as expected, Lurie selected someone from within the San Francisco Fire Department — Battalion Chief Dean Crispen — to lead the agency. 

One immediate difference between Lurie and his predecessor is his willingness to yank people out of the corporate world and install them in City Hall jobs. 

Kunal Modi, Lurie’s chief of health, homelessness, and family services, comes from the consulting giant McKinsey & Company. According to his LinkedIn, Modi interfaced with local, state, and federal government officials during his time at McKinsey, where he helped streamline services. 

Slaughter, Lurie’s chief of staff, served as an executive vice president of the Giants baseball team and as an advisor to the investment firm Sixth Street Partners.

Nina Negusse, the mayor’s communications director, served in city government years ago but most recently worked at Edelman, a public relations firm whose clients include multinational corporations and foreign governments. Andre Adeyemi, the mayor’s director of appointments, comes from the technology company Zep AI and the recruiting firm Rich Talent Group.

It isn’t uncommon for campaign loyalists to land a job in the new administration. That practice hasn’t ended with Lurie. 

The largest donation came from Segal, who pitched $10,000 to Lurie’s independent expenditure committee. Slaughter, Goudeau, and public safety chief Paul Yep gave the maximum contribution allowed, $500, to the mayor’s candidate campaign.

Like his predecessor Breed, Lurie is a San Francisco native, though the two have starkly different backgrounds. Nearly a third of Lurie’s appointments were also born and raised here. 

Segal and Lurie attended the posh Town School for Boys. Yep is a product of Lowell High School, while Black, a recent college graduate, attended Stuart Hall High School, a private Catholic boy’s school. 

Three other appointments are the product of Catholic schools: Crispen attended Holy Name School and St. Ignatius; E.J. Jones, Lurie’s director of community affairs, attended St. Ignatius; and Gabillet went to Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory.

Lurie also pulled talent from nonprofits and other elected officials’ offices. 

Press secretary Charles Lutvak was a staffer for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign and worked for New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Alicia John-Baptiste, Lurie’s infrastructure, climate, and transportation chief, is the former leader of SPUR, an urbanist nonprofit that influenced the restructuring of the mayor’s office. 

Jones unsuccessfully ran for the District 11 supervisor seat during the November election and recently worked as housing director of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center. 

Before joining the private sector, Adeyemi worked for former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and former Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.).