Before Linda Lacewell was a top aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his rumored replacement to head the state’s financial regulatory agency, she was a fierce federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn.

Lacewell spent nearly a decade working for the U.S. Department of Justice before transitioning to become a longtime—and loyal—part of Cuomo’s administration, where she’s worked almost exclusively since he first took office as New York attorney general in 2007.