courtesy of Jack Leslie

Curiosity Expert: Jack Leslie

Chairman, Weber Shandwick

• Social Good Summit
• 2010 World Economic Forum
• Invisible Children
• Standard Digital: Jack Leslie interview
• ABN Digital interview
• Follow Jack Leslie on Twitter!

Jack Leslie serves as Chairman of Weber Shandwick, the world's leading public relations and public affairs firm. A seasoned global communications professional and political operative, Mr. Leslie specializes in helping corporations, public institutions and prominent individuals to drive strategic campaigns.

Mr. Leslie has advised many leading national and international figures of the last two decades. He was a senior aide to U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy as well as a strategist on dozens of campaigns in the United States, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Political and business leaders seek his counsel in times of significant crises. Mr. Leslie served as a communications crisis advisor to the NY-NJ Port Authority in the immediate aftermath of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and to American Airlines following the attacks of September 11, 2001; to the Government of Colombia on narco-trafficking and terrorism; to the State of Florida on the shootings of foreign tourists; and many other foreign and domestic crises. Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, he testified before the House International Relations Committee on U.S. public diplomacy programs directed at the Muslim world.

Mr. Leslie started his career as an aide to Senator Kennedy, serving as his political director and as Executive Director of the Fund for a Democratic Majority. He joined Sawyer Miller Group, a prominent political consulting firm, in 1983 and became President of the company in 1985.

Mr. Leslie was appointed by President Obama in 2009 to serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF). Mr. Leslie is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, member of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an Advisory Board member for the Ron Brown Scholar Program, former Chairman of the Board of USA for UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) and a participant in UNHCR Missions to Afghanistan (1998), Kosovo (1999) and Tanzania (2001). He is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Duke Global Health Institute and a trustee of the Circumnavigators Foundation.

Mr. Leslie is a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.