Leslie worked with Cornerstone Theater Company for ten years serving as managing director from 1995 to 2001. She produced dozens of experimental, community-engaged, and site-specific theater projects and was responsible for the company's strategic development.

Leslie has worked with not-for-profit arts organizations in Los Angeles and New York as a consultant supporting their efforts to be sustainable, stronger and more deeply engaged with their communities. She worked with the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center and the New Opera Theater Ensemble in Massachusetts, and studied in Japan at Kyoto University and Kobe University where she collaborated with and learned from shogekijo and butoh practitioners. Leslie earned a master's degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Leslie has served as a panelist for the Creative Work Fund, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Theatre Communications Group, California Arts Council, Los Angeles County Arts Commission and the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department.