(Bloomberg) -- New York City Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch was tapped by Mayor Eric Adams Wednesday to lead the police department, marking the second time in its nearly 180-year history that the NYPD will be led by a woman.
“As one of the most successful managers in our administration, I am confident that Commissioner Tisch will effectively lead the greatest police department in the world and continue to deliver the safety and peace of mind New Yorkers deserve,” Adams said in a statement Wednesday. Tisch’s first day as commissioner will be Nov. 25.
Though she has never served as a uniformed police officer, Tisch, 43, started her career in counterterrorism with the NYPD after earning her JD/MBA degree from Harvard University. She’ll take the helm of the country’s largest police force after a decade working in top positions across city government, including a stint as deputy commissioner for information technology at the NYPD under former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Tisch’s oversight of sanitation has largely been seen as a bright spot in an administration plagued by federal investigations, criminal allegations and a stream of departures and resignations. Adams in September became the first sitting mayor in modern New York City history to be indicted on federal corruption charges, and Tisch’s two immediate predecessors have both been entangled in separate legal probes.
During her time with the NYPD, Tisch, a scion of a billionaire family, implemented a program to equip every cop with custom-designed smartphones and to place tablets in police vehicles, helping officers access real-time data.
“She did a phenomenal job for the NYPD, literally bringing the NYPD into the 21st century,” former Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said in an interview. He praised her management experience and understanding of some of the city’s largest agencies. “She has an incredible intimacy with how the New York bureaucracy works.”
Later, as head of the city Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications during the pandemic, she was responsible for helping build vaccine-finder websites as New Yorkers scrambled to get Covid-19 shots. She also helped create the system for couples to get married by city clerk over Zoom when in-person weddings weren’t possible.
“I’m getting up every morning and going to work and spending my time and my energy thinking about how we can make New York City a safer, cleaner, more livable place for all New Yorkers,” Tisch said Oct. 15 as she accepted an honor at the New Yorkers for Parks annual benefit in Manhattan.
Tisch will be the fourth person to serve as police commissioner during Adams’ first term as mayor, taking over a department roiled by turnover at the highest ranks.
She replaces interim Commissioner Tom Donlon, who stepped in after former Commissioner Edward Caban resigned amid a federal probe involving his brother’s nightlife consulting business. Caban had served in the position a little more than a year, replacing Keechant Sewell, the first woman to serve in the role. Shortly after Donlon took over the role, his home was searched by officers looking for decades-old classified documents he may have had in his possession.
Adams, a former police captain, won the mayoralty in 2021 in part on his law enforcement background and pledge to help drive down crime. While most crime in New York is down since last year, total crime in 2024 is still higher than in the same period in 2019.
During her tenure as sanitation commissioner, overseeing about 10,000 employees, Tisch has managed a high-profile effort to “containerize” New York City’s trash, reforming the city’s longstanding practice of putting garbage out on the street in bags for overnight pickup in an effort to stem the city’s rodent population boom. Rat sightings across the city fell in 12 of the previous 13 months through April, according to the Sanitation Department.
Tisch is the daughter of James Tisch, the chief executive officer of Loews Corp., and Merryl Tisch, who served as chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents.
The new commissioner counts among her close friends Damian Williams, the US Attorney in Manhattan, whose office indicted Adams. In a 2022 New York Times profile, Williams, who attended Harvard with Tisch and interned with her at the US Attorney’s office when they both were in law school, affectionately described her passion for embracing challenges, and her fondness for solving jigsaw puzzles.
Their tenures won’t overlap for long. Williams has told people privately he intends to step down from the office before president-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration in January. Trump has said he would name Jay Clayton, the former chairman for the Securities and Exchange Commission, as Williams’ replacement.
--With assistance from Amanda Gordon.
(Updates with Tisch’s start date and Damian Williams’ plans to resign.)
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