Leadership Revamp - DRAFT - Food Bank For New York City

In 1983, leaders of the city’s pioneering soup kitchens and food pantries gathered to create a solution to best meet their needs in serving their communities. The result was the founding of Food Bank. That Food Bank has since provided more than 1.2 Billion Meals FOR New York City.

Executive Team

Leslie Gordon, President & CEO

Leslie Gordon is Food Bank for New York City’s President and Chief Executive Officer. She assumed this post at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and led one of the nation’s largest Food Bank’s two double its annual output of food from 70 million lbs. to nearly 150 million lbs. of food in less than 18 months. For more than a decade, Leslie has led efforts to feed our neighbors in need in New York City and surrounding communities. Most recently she served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Feeding Westchester, Westchester County’s largest anti-hunger organization.

During her tenure at Feeding Westchester, Leslie took the organization to new heights by challenging the team to think boldly as they chart a course for the future, and creating a special culture that is highly collaborative and inclusive. Leslie led the charge to rebrand the county’s leading nonprofit hunger-relief organization from “Food Bank for Westchester” to “Feeding Westchester” to better communicate the breadth of its work. Under Leslie’s leadership, the organization increased the amount of fresh produce to more than 40 percent, and upped the amount of food distributed by 20 percent – more than the average food bank in the nation. Leslie also forged cutting-edge, strategic alliances with non-food partners – specifically with health institutions – large and small to help address diet-related diseases.

Leslie previously served as the Senior Director of Program Strategy and Operations at City Harvest, where she helped pioneer a new strategy that positioned the organization to double the amount of food distributed annually, led the organization’s “Healthy Neighborhoods” program and oversaw the growth of its volunteer program from 6,000 to nearly 20,000 volunteers. Prior to that she was Executive Director of Best Buddies Pennsylvania and the Founding Director of Made in the Hudson Valley. She also served under General Colin Powell as National Director of America’s Promise – The Alliance for Youth where she partnered with C-Suite leaders at FORTUNE 500 companies to launch global corporate social responsibility programs.

Leslie is Chair of the Board of Directors of Feeding New York State, and Chair of Feeding America’s Northeast Region of food banks, Feeding America’s National Advisory Committee rep for the Northeast region. City & State’s 2021 Nonprofit Power 100 leader, the Top 40 Most Fascinating Women in Westchester and Fairfield Counties alongside Glenn Close and Hilary Clinton, and the recipient of the 2020 SUNY New Paltz Professional Achievement Award.