By Christopher Miller
Loni Mahanta is a nonresident fellow in Economic Studies at Brookings, where she focuses on tech policy and emerging tech.
Loni is a regulatory, legal, and policy executive whose leadership helps businesses craft winning strategies when industries face uncertainty. Her focus on agility, resilience, and growth empowers organizations to consider the legal, regulatory, and policy landscapes in which they operate. Loni is known for skillfully simplifying the intricacies of business engagement in public policy for any audience — from the gig economy to crypto regulation to property tech. She helps management teams strengthen their collaboration with external constituents through successful engagement plans for interactions with elected officials, community groups, and the media.
Loni currently serves as the VP, Government Relations and Public Policy at Zillow, where she is modernizing and simplifying the real estate journey for customers and partners by building a seamless end-to-end experience. Loni partners with government and policy makers to create these policies to facilitate such a transformation.
Prior to Zillow, Loni spent six years at Lyft, most recently serving as the Vice President of Policy Development and Research where she successfully translated business objectives into actionable legislation at the local, state, and national levels. Recruited to the role by Chief Policy Officer, Anthony Foxx (former U.S. Secretary of Transportation), Loni led teams with expertise in negotiating win/win agreements in the areas of sustainability, safety, privacy, transportation, and labor. Loni also advised Lyft’s executive team and Board of Directors on high-impact litigation, audits, strategic partnerships, and acquisitions.
Loni currently serves on the Board of Directors of HopSkipDrive (HSD), a vehicle-for-hire company for children that operates in nine states and 16 markets across the U.S. HSD partners primarily with school districts to serve student transportation needs. Loni also sits on the board of the Family Violence Appellate Project, a non-profit dedicated to helping domestic violence survivors and their children by appealing dangerous trial court decisions on their behalf, for free.
Loni began her career in Labor, Employment and Litigation at Folger Levin LLP, Crowell & Moring LLP, and Folger Levin & Kahn LLP. Loni earned her J.D. from University of California’s Hastings College of the Law and a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University. She is a regular speaker on topics including the future of work, regulation, diversity, and inclusion.
