Matt Nelligan

Before he built a coalition for New Yorkers for Affordable Energy, Matt Nelligan spent more than 16 years shaping New York energy and public-safety policy from inside the State Legislature. As Director of the Senate Committee on Energy and Telecommunications, he helped author the Recharge NY Program and reform how major electric generating facilities are sited; as Chief of Staff to Senator George Maziarz, he wrote the legislation that let Nik Wallenda walk a high wire across Niagara Falls on live television, the first sanctioned event of its kind. He went on to serve as Chief of Staff to Senators Rich Funke and Mike Martucci before founding the government affairs firm Syndicate Strategies in 2023, pairing traditional lobbying with digital communications and public-affairs strategy.

Syndicate Strategies' flagship account is New Yorkers for Affordable Energy, the coalition Nelligan's firm has managed since the year he founded it — making him NYAE's association manager and lead advocate, not a formal NYAE officer. Nelligan took on that work at a moment when, as one peer nominator recalled, "electrification mandates and gas appliance bans seemed all but certain." NYAE's goals were to stop bans on natural gas, expand pipeline capacity, amend the state's climate law, and defeat the NY HEAT Act. In the most recent legislative session, each of those fights moved NYAE's way: there have been no new gas bans, the NY HEAT Act did not pass, the state's climate law was amended on terms more favorable to NYAE's members, and the Northeast Supply Enhancement pipeline advanced in downstate New York. NYAE was only one voice in that debate, but Nelligan's coalition-building — bringing more labor, business, and trade groups into the fold — was credited by supporters and critics alike as playing a real role, and coalition membership has more than doubled during his tenure.

That record reflects the same instincts Nelligan honed over 16 years in the Legislature: patient coalition-building and a knack for moving technical, high-stakes policy across the finish line. As New York continues to weigh climate goals against energy affordability, Nelligan and NYAE's larger, more diversified coalition are positioned to keep shaping that debate in the sessions ahead.