Ashleigh Gardere, Executive Vice President, brings vision to life through PolicyLink programs, activating common and uncommon partners to develop a shared national equity agenda. She is a pioneer in inclusive economic growth. She works effectively across government, private, and nonprofit sectors to create infrastructure for a coalition broad enough to Win on Equity.

Recognized by Living Cities as one of the nation’s Top 25 Disruptive Leaders working to close racial wealth gaps, Ashleigh is an expert in economic and workforce development, public policy, organizational leadership and culture change, and performance management for large-scale systems transformation.

As Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the New Orleans Business Alliance, Ashleigh transformed the public-private partnership into one of the nation’s leading economic development organizations prioritizing inclusive growth as the pathway to a thriving, sustainable economy. She established a new organizational structure and culture of performance while aligning industry attraction, small business growth, talent, and strategic neighborhood development strategies to deliver greater benefits to locals.

Ashleigh served the City of New Orleans as Senior Advisor to Mayor Mitch Landrieu, connecting New Orleans residents to family-sustaining wages and business growth opportunities. As principal strategist, implementer, and coordinator of the Mayor’s Economic Opportunity Strategy, Ashleigh led a cross-sector initiative that reduced the African American male non-employment rate from 52 percent to 43.9 percent. In addition to passing one of the first local hire policies in the American South—and successfully defending the policy from state preemption, she set a new standard of proactive compliance with the City’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) policy, increasing DBE participation from 35 percent to 48.62 percent in just three years.

Ashleigh previously served as Vice President of Community Relations at Chase Bank for Louisiana. During her tenure, she envisioned, established and convened a collaborative of local and national foundations to support the revitalization of the Central City neighborhood as a model for post-Katrina, community-led rebuilding. Ashleigh began her career working in various strategic planning and policy development roles supporting the work of local and national nonprofit organizations with community development-oriented missions, including the F.B. Heron Foundation, Center for Community Change, and Greater Treme Consortium.

Ashleigh serves as board chair of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation which partners with organizations and networks to alleviate poverty and increase social and economic justice in 11 Southern states. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies from New York University and a master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where she was a Public Policy and International Affairs Fellow.