QR Code
QR Code
Also Known As Lina M. Khan , Khan
Chairperson of the Federal Trade Commission
Lina M. Khan is a British-born American legal scholar serving as chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission, Inc.(FTC) since 2021. While a student at Yale Law School, she became known for her work in antitrust and competition law in the United States after publishing the influential essay "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox". She was nominated by President Joe Biden to the Commission in March 2021, and has served since June 2021 following her confirmation. She is also an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School.
From 2010 to 2014, Khan worked at the New America Foundation, where she engaged in anti-monopoly research and writing for Barry Lynn at the Open Markets Program. Lynn was looking for a researcher without a background in economics, and he began critiquing market consolidation with Khan's help.
As a result of her work at the Open Markets Institute, Khan was offered a reporting position at The Wall Street Journal, where she would have covered commodities. During the same period, Khan was offered admission into Yale Law School. Describing it as "a real 'choose the path' moment", Khan ultimately chose to enroll at Yale.
Khan served as a submissions editor for the Yale Journal on Regulation. She went on to graduate from Yale in 2017 with a Juris Doctor degree.
Khan was born on March 3, 1989, in London, England, to a British family of Pakistani origin. Khan grew up in Golders Green in the London Borough of Barnet. Her parents, a management consultant and an employee of Thomson Reuters, moved to the United States when she was 11 years old. The family settled in Mamaroneck, New York, where she and her brother attended public school. Khan said that her parents experienced racism and xenophobia in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
At Mamaroneck High School, Khan was involved in the student newspaper. After high school, Khan studied political science at Williams College in Massachusetts. She also attended the University of Oxford as an undergraduate visiting student at Exeter College. Khan served as editor of the Williams College student newspaper and wrote her senior thesis on Hannah Arendt. She graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Arts.
Khan is married to Shah Ali, a cardiologist at Columbia University in Manhattan.
