Leslie Black Cordes is Senior Director, Strategic Partnerships, Energy and Climate for the Foundation where she is responsible for developing new relationships with the philanthropic, international donors, and private sector communities. She previously served for two years as Chief of EPA's Energy Supply and Industry Branch, where she managed a suite of voluntary programs that included the Climate Leaders, Green Power, and Combined Heat and Power Partnerships.

Prior to her tenure at EPA, she spent more than eight years at the non-profit Alliance to Save Energy, serving in various management capacities, including Acting Co-President, Vice President for Program Development, and Director for International Programs. Ms. Cordes also designed and implemented energy-efficiency and climate projects in developing countries as deputy director of the U.S. Agency for International Development's Energy Efficiency Program. She began her career on the staff of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where she worked for almost eight years on legislative initiatives to advance energy efficiency, renewable energy, and alternative fuel vehicles, and to mitigate global climate change. 


Ms. Cordes has a B.A. in Political Economics from the University of California at Berkeley, and a M.S. in International Trade & Finance from Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, and is on the board of Environmental Research Advocates and the Advisory Board of the Association for Climate Change Officers.

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