Leslie Harris is a global leader in Internet freedom, civil liberties and human rights. She is widely recognized as a transformational leader and social entrepreneur who has built strong and sustainable organizations, crafted countless issue campaigns, guided winning coalitions, negotiated landmark legislation, and nurtured generations of talented leadership.
From 2005 to 2014, Harris served as President /CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology. She led the organization through a period of extraordinary growth and transformation, launching highly regarded projects on health privacy, global Internet freedom and Internet architecture and establishing a presence in Brussels, London and San Francisco. Under her guidance, the organization played a leadership role in the seminal Internet policy debates of the past decade including global Internet governance, consumer privacy, Intellectual property and free expression.
After leaving CDT, Ms. Harris founded the Harris Strategy Group which provided strategic advice and policy development to the business sector, civil society and academia. Harris was recognized as one of Fast Company’s “Most Influential Women in Technology”, selected as the Huffington Post’s “10 Female Tech CEOs to Watch” and twice named one of Washington’s “Tech Titans” by Washingtonian Magazine. Prior to joining CDT, Ms. Harris was the Founder and President of the first woman led tech policy firm in Washington, Leslie Harris & Associates (LHA). Mission driven, LHA was committed to closing the digital divide, developing the democratic potential of the Internet, strengthening the voice of civil society and supporting innovation.
Earlier, Harris held senior policy leadership positions in two prominent civil liberties organizations, including as Chief Legislative Counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington Office. She was also in private law practice in Washington, DC. Harris served in leadership positions in the American Bar Association, including as a member and as Chair of the Section on Individual Rights and Responsibilities. In addition to teaching at the Georgetown University School of Communication, Culture and Technology at Georgetown, she has been an adjunct lecturer at the School of Information at the University of California at Berkeley and the Washington College of Law at American University.