ZUBAIR MERCHANT

Zubair Merchant is a community organizer, policy professional, and a son of New York. He was born in Queens, grew up on Long Island, and went to HKS to improve government right in his hometown of NYC. Zubair’s entire career has been focused on public service and organizing. Upon graduating from the University of Chicago with his B.A. in Public Policy in 2019, he moved to Iowa to work on the Sanders Presidential campaign as a Campus Organizer. He was then the Pennsylvania Youth Vote Director for the Biden-Harris Campaign in 2020 followed by a stint at the Chief of Staff to Rhode Island State Senator Cynthia Mendes in 2021. In 2022, Zubair was Zohran Mamdani’s Campaign Manager for his assembly re-election, then the deputy campaign manager on a joint Governor-Lt. Governor campaign in Rhode Island. In 2023, he served as a third grade assistant teacher in a public school in East Harlem with City Year New York and AmeriCorps.

He began his MPP at HKS in the fall of 2023 and during his two years served as the Executive Vice President and President of the Kennedy School Student Government (KSSG). At HKS he was also an MPP orientation leader, a course assistant, and a research assistant. After graduating in May 2025, Zubair joined Zohran Mamdani’s Mayoral campaign as a Policy Manager.

Zubair is also active in volunteer work in his Ismaili-Muslim community where he has organized to register Ismailis to vote and has volunteered in senior levels in Ismaili-youth summer camps

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