As Mayor Bloomberg's former head of social services, Linda Gibbs was responsible for the city's homeless shelters, foster care program, and the corrections department. She's since been appointed the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, so please, thank her for the soda ban.

Raised in upstate New York, Gibbs attended Queens College and the Cardozo School of Law before hopping into New York City government and has been there ever since (she even met her husband while they worked together under Ed Koch.) Initially working as an adviser in the finance division of the Mayor's Office, she started climbing up the ladder during Giuliani's reign, where she worked as the Deputy Commissioner for Management and Planning in the Administration for Children's Services. After stints as the Deputy Director of Social Services and Commissioner of Homeless Services, Gibbs has settled in as Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, making her in charge of countless programs aimed at keeping New Yorkers healthy and informed. In addition to the slew of advertisements on subways warning about the dangers of sugar and encouraging people to "make New York your gym," in a controversial move, Gibbs and Mayor Bloomberg proposed a ban on the extra-large sodas. With many decrying the ban as an affront to New Yorkers' freedom of choice, the ban was nevertheless passed in 2012. [Image via Getty]