March 25, 2019
City & State New York
REBECCA SEAWRIGHT SUZANNE VEIRA
LOURDES ZAPATA
ASSEMBLYWOMAN
CHIEF DIVERSITY OFFICER
CHIEF DIVERSITY OFFICER
NEW YORK CITY SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION AUTHORITY
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO’S OFFICE
Rebecca Seawright is the first woman to represent the 76th District in the Assembly, where she acts on behalf of the Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island. In 2014, when the National Organization for Women asked her to run, four men had already declared their candidacy – but Seawright wasn’t intimidated. “I looked at their (campaign finance) filings and collectively they had already raised over half a million dollars,” the assemblywoman says. “But because I had gotten my start in politics doing fundraising for the young women’s political caucus and Ann Richards, who ultimately became the governor of Texas, I knew a thing or two about fundraising.” Born and raised in Texas, Seawright became interested in politics toward the end of high school, when news spread through her small town about a woman who had been discriminated against by the local court. Afterward, she began working in local politics and decided to go to law school. Seawright’s proudest accomplishments as a legislator include the recent passage of her Equal Rights Amendment bill in the Assembly and the 3D mammography law she wrote, which expands access to breast cancer screenings.
New York City gave out nearly $4 billion in contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses in 2018, and Suzanne Veira deserves some credit – after dedicating much of her 35-year career in city government to connecting MWBEs to city money. Even though Veira was working at the New York City Department of Small Business Services in the mid-2000s and helped launch the city’s MWBE program, she gasped at being called the mother of the program. “That’s too much,” she says laughing. “I was there for the birth, but I wasn’t the one pushing the baby out! So you could call me part of the team of physicians.” Veira has been attending to her patient ever since, launching an MWBE mentorship program to prepare smaller companies for work with the School Construction Authority. She also helped create the Opportunity Academy Program, which has trained a racially diverse class of men and women for jobs in construction management. The Trinidad-born longtime Brooklynite admits the job can be tough – “there are days you go home feeling like you got your butt kicked” – but it’s fulfilling. “You know that you are creating opportunities for people who need the opportunity.”
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A little over a year ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo tapped Lourdes Zapata to lead his administration’s diversity initiatives within state government. It was a natural fit for Zapata, who previously led the division that handles minority and women’s business development at Empire State Development. “At its core, my professional and personal interests are always around community and economic development activities,” she says. One of the successes she has overseen includes an increase in minority- and women-owned businesses participating in state contracts – which grew to nearly 29 percent in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Zapata started her career in the legal field before pivoting to economic development. “As fun as it was to be able to provide some support and guidance to these groups in their local challenges, I really craved the opportunity to have some in-depth involvement in the development of community and planning issues,” she says. She spent 17 years at the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corp., handling projects related to building affordable housing. “I just really feel blessed that I have the chance to work at a job where I can see the fruits of my labor very clearly,” she says.