Senior Advisor

About the Agency:
The New York City Department of Housing Preservation Development (HPD) promotes quality and affordability in the city's housing, and diversity and strength in the city’s neighborhoods because every New Yorker deserves a safe, affordable place to live in a neighborhood they love.

- We maintain building and resident safety and health
- We create opportunities for New Yorkers through housing affordability
- We engage New Yorkers to build and sustain neighborhood strength and diversity.
Your Team
The Office of the Commissioner provides strategic leadership and cross-agency coordination for HPD, advancing the agency’s mission to promote quality, affordable housing and strong, diverse neighborhoods. The team works closely with divisions across HPD, City Hall, and external partners to support decision-making, drive priority initiatives, and ensure effective execution of agency goals.
Your Role
The Senior Advisor to the Commissioner serves as a senior attorney and strategic advisor within HPD’s Office of the Commissioner, helping to develop, coordinate, and advance cross-cutting legal, policy, and operational priorities. This role requires a sophisticated legal thinker who can assess complex issues, translate legal and policy considerations into actionable strategy, and build alignment across agency divisions and external stakeholders.
Your Responsibilities
- Provide legal analysis and strategic counsel to the Commissioner and senior leadership team on discrete matters, special initiatives, and cross-cutting priorities, in coordination with the Office of Legal Affairs.
- Identify and analyze emerging legal, regulatory, and policy issues with implications for HPD’s programs, priorities, and mission.
- Work collaboratively across the agency to develop innovative legal and policy strategies that advance affordable housing, preservation, enforcement, tenant protection, and neighborhood planning goals.
- Liaise with HPD divisions and senior staff to provide strategic support on sensitive, complex, or high-priority matters requiring executive-level coordination.
- Represent HPD in interagency working groups, policy discussions, and meetings with City Hall, government partners, and external stakeholders.
- Initiate, organize, and coordinate complex projects and special initiatives from conception through implementation.
- Prepare and review legal memoranda, briefing materials, presentations, and other executive-level materials for senior leadership and external audiences.
Preferred skills
- Exceptional judgment, discretion, and political acuity, with the ability to advise senior executives on sensitive, complex, or high-profile matters.
- Strong executive-level writing, editing, and communication skills, including the ability to translate complex legal and policy issues into clear, actionable recommendations.
- Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced executive office environment, managing ambiguity, competing priorities, and relationships across legal, policy, operational, and external stakeholders.
Minimum Qualifications
Admission to the New York State Bar; and four years of recent full-time responsible, relevant, satisfactory legal experience subsequent to admission to any bar, eighteen months of which must have been in the supervision of other attorneys, in an administrative, managerial, or executive capacity, or performing highly complex and significant legal work.
Incumbents must remain Members of the New York State Bar in good standing for the duration of this employment.
EXECUTIVE AGENCY COUNSEL - 95005
Authorization to work in the United States is required for this position. The NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development does not provide sponsorship for international employees for visa applications, extensions, or status changes, including H-1B visas. Applicants are responsible for ensuring that they meet all qualifying requirements for this position at the time of application.

Admission to the New York State Bar; and four years of recent full-time responsible, relevant, satisfactory legal experience subsequent to admission to any bar, eighteen months of which must have been in the supervision of other attorneys, in an administrative, managerial or executive capacity, or performing highly complex and significant legal work.

Incumbents must remain Members of the New York State Bar in good standing for the duration of this employment.

The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.