Leslie Gonzales is a Lead Specialist in the Resilience and Stability practice with more than 20 years of experience designing, implementing, managing, and evaluating gender, youth, stabilization, and institutional capacity-strengthening programs in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, South America, and Eastern Europe. She provides expertise on a wide variety of gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) areas, youth engagement, and countering violent extremism, working with the Resilience and Stability practice to increase capacities against shocks and stresses. She previously served as a GESI Expert Advisor and as the Project Team Director for DAI’s Africa project portfolio. As Director, Leslie held full technical, financial, and compliance responsibility for a portfolio of projects in Africa. She ensured high-quality programming and the achievement of development outcomes and project goals.

Leslie previously led long-term projects as Chief of Party for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) projects in Rwanda and Iraq, as well as serving as Gender Advisor to USAID in Pakistan, and Field Program Officer and Regional Development Advisor to USAID in Afghanistan. In addition to leadership and project management skills, Leslie has technical expertise in gender equity and integrating gender policies in programming and processes; skills building and democracy training for local governments; design of participatory community development activities; civil-military coordination and collaboration; and youth activities and training.

• M.A., development studies, Université de Genève