![A man helping a student with class work in classroom.](https://socialfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/JVS-076-1-scaled-1-1000x668.jpg")
Pay for Success Issue Brief Series
This series of 10 issue briefs on Pay for Success (PFS) is intended to provide practical guidance and examples for government officials interested in pursuing PFS within their agencies or jurisdictions.
Leslie Cornell
![Leslie Cornell Headshot](https://socialfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Leslie-Cornell-333x500.jpg")
(She, her, hers)
Vice President, Deputy General Counsel & Policy Advisor
2018
- Operations
- Impact Investing
- lcornell@socialfinance.org
- San Francisco
Leslie Cornell is a Vice President and the Deputy General Counsel & Policy Advisor at Social Finance. She manages the legal team across SFI’s portfolio of Impact Investments, advises the senior team with respect to policy and regulatory priorities, and supports the General Counsel in developing organizational strategy and overseeing corporate legal matters.
She was an awardee of the 2019 Grunin Prize for Law and Social Entrepreneurship, administered by the New York University School of Law. In 2023 and 2024, she was elected to be a regional board member of the Global Alliance of Impact Lawyers (GAIL) North America.
Building first-of-their-kind impact finance products is an exercise in collaboration, creativity and persistence. I’m challenged and invigorated by this work every day.
Insights
![A Black family sits in a grassy park having a picnic](https://socialfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/pexels-agung-pandit-wiguna-1128316-1000x729.jpg")
Social Enterprise and Impact Investing as a Tool for Black Economic Mobility
![Two men embracing](https://socialfinance.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Untitled-design-1-e1668712461220-1000x762.png")
Elevating Community Voices as an Impact Investing Lawyer
Leslie Cornell discusses how she uses her position as a lawyer to ask probing questions about how project terms serve people—and push for changes when they do not.