Chief Executive Officer
LESLIE ABBEY, ESQ. (she/her) is an organizational leader and entrepreneur who has committed her career to supporting families and youth, social justice, and data-driven strategies to improve social service outcomes. As Hot Bread Kitchen’s CEO, Leslie is overseeing execution of the organization’s three-year plan to support 1,000 breadwinners across New York City and expand its programs to all five boroughs.
Prior to joining Hot Bread Kitchen in January 2022, Leslie was Deputy Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of Covenant House New York, the City’s largest organization dedicated to serving youth experiencing homelessness. From 2014 to 2017, Leslie was Chief Program Officer at Lantern Community Services, a leading nonprofit provider of supportive housing in New York City. Prior to Lantern, Leslie held progressively senior positions at the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) in the Bloomberg administration. Her first role was as Executive Director of the Juvenile Justice Initiative, the City’s largest alternative-to-placement program for youth in the juvenile justice system and the first-ever program of its kind to use data-driven evidence-based social service models. At the end of her ACS tenure, Leslie was Interim Deputy Commissioner of the Division of Policy, Planning, and Measurement, where she led the creation and implementation of myriad, data-driven City-wide initiatives. Leslie started her career advocating for youth as an attorney in the Legal Aid Society’s Juvenile Rights Practice from 1997 to 2007, where she first represented children in Bronx Family Court, and then moved on to the Practice’s Special Litigation and Law Reform Unit.
A critical thinker with a passion for building programs that improve social service outcomes and the experience of users of public systems, Leslie is a co-founder of two nonprofit organizations. In the year following her law school graduation, Leslie co-founded Family Legal Care (formerly LIFT), an award-winning organization that provides legal information and support to 30,000 Family Court litigants annually. In 2022, Leslie co-founded, and now serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Anthos|Home, which aims to improve housing outcomes for New Yorkers with housing vouchers, in collaboration with myriad housing system partners.
Leslie has served on numerous other boards and committees in the nonprofit and public sectors as well. Current appointments include the Board of Managers of Swarthmore College, Board of Trustees of New York University School of Law, Board of Trustees of JCCA, and Board of Directors of the New York City Employment and Training Coalition. She is also a member of the Women’s Forum of New York.
A native New Yorker who has always loved the beauty of food, Leslie and her husband live in Manhattan, where they have raised two children and one rescue puppy.
