Lorelei Salas

Lorelei Salas is a fellow with the Open Society Foundations’ Leadership in Government fellowship and a Fulbright Specialist with expertise in U.S. consumer and worker protection laws. From 2016 to 2021 Salas served as the commissioner of the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. Under her leadership the agency aggressively pursued corporations that employ predatory practices to target low-income and immigrant consumers, such as for-profit schools and telecommunications companies, as well as employers that fail to comply with important municipal protections for workers. 

Previously, Salas was the legal director at Make the Road New York, supervising immigration, housing, and employment legal services programs designed to increase access to justice for immigrants and refugees. She also led the legal department at Catholic Migration Services, supervising the same areas of legal practice. In 2009, Salas was nominated by President Obama as the Wage and Hour Administrator at the United States Department of Labor. She also worked at the New York State Attorney General’s Office in the Litigation and Labor Bureaus and held multiple senior management positions at the New York State Department of Labor, supervising strategic enforcement efforts.