APRIL 8 • 2021 | 37

F

armington Hills native 
Eric Feldman has had a 
long and storied career 
in politics.
As chief of staff for 
Congressman and, later, Sen. 
Gary Peters, Eric Feldman 
spent 12 years overseeing 
operations in Washington, 
D.C., and Michigan. “It was a 
really incredible opportunity,” 
Feldman, 40, says.
Now based out of Chevy 
Chase, Md., he’s taking his 
career one step further in a 
new role with online rent-
al marketplace Airbnb. He 
serves as the company’s head 

of Federal and International 
Affairs. There, Feldman will 
help develop and implement 
Airbnb’s U.S. federal regulatory, 
legislative and public policy 
initiatives.
It’s a new direction for the 
legislative and federal affairs 
expert, who developed a love 
for politics early on while 
attending Farmington public 
schools. “I got interested in 
politics at a fairly young age,” 
he recalls. “My first political 
memory is the 1990 election, 
when I was 10.”
During that election, a mill-
age for the school system nar-

rowly lost the vote, only to be 
replaced by a new one several 
years later. Seeing the experi-
ence unfold taught Feldman 
about the importance of orga-
nizing and not taking elections 
for granted, he says.
“Because that millage passed 
several years subsequently, my 
sister and I didn’t get those 
further investments in our high 
school,” Feldman recalls. “I saw 

the real consequences of public 
policy decisions.”

ENGROSSED IN POLITICS
It inspired him to eventu-
ally switch his major at the 
University of Michigan from 
engineering to political sci-
ence, as his passion for politics 
continued to grow. “I got so 
engrossed in politics that I 
wanted to pursue something 
that I was really passionate 
about,” Feldman explains. He 
strived to focus on American 
politics and began to get 
involved in planning events on 
campus.
While interning in 
Washington for former U.S. 
Sen. Carl Levin in the summer 
of 2000, Feldman inadvertently 
crossed paths with his future 
boss — Gary Peters — but 
he didn’t know it at the time. 
Before joining Peters’ team, 
Feldman officially moved to 
D.C. in 2002 to take on his 

Eric Feldman, Sen. Peters’ chief of staff, 
heads to Airbnb in new role.

From the Hill 
to the C-Suite

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Eric Feldman

continued on page 39

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