Deb Axt

Deborah Axt was recently Co-Executive Director of Make the Road New York, the largest immigrant base-building organization in New York State. Deborah leads Make the Road’s new worker organizing and low-wage worker policy work, as well as the organization’s legal, services, finance and development operations. She is one of the architects of the WASH NY campaign to organize car wash workers in NYC, and she led the successful campaign to pass the Wage Theft Prevention Act in 2010. Deborah first came to Make the Road as a summer intern in 2000, then graduated magna cum laude from the Georgetown University Law Center and joined the staff full-time in 2002. She built the organization’s legal department, serving as Legal Director and then Deputy Director before becoming Co-Executive Director in April, 2012. Before law school, Deb worked for four years as a union and community organizer, serving on the leadership teams of industry-wide initiatives in West Palm Beach, Florida; Los Angeles, California; and New Orleans, Louisiana. She also teaches Civil Litigation and co-leads the Law, Organizing, and Social Change Clinic at the New York University law school. She is the mom of Elijah and Zoe.