Board of Directors

Leslie Gilbert-Lurie is a lawyer, author, philanthropist, community leader, and former television executive. Her Holocaust memoir, Bending Toward the Sun, documents her mother’s experience in the Holocaust and the intergenerational transmission of trauma.

In 2022, Leslie was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom to the California State University Board of Trustees. The CSU is the largest public University system in the United States.

Gilbert-Lurie is a member of the International Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Board of Directors of the Pacific Council on International Policy. She also serves on the UCLA Foundation Board of Directors, and the Board of Advisors to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical

Center and the UCLA School of Law. Previously, Leslie was on the Los Angeles County Board of Education, and was President of the Board for three terms.

As a Founding Board Member and past Board Chair of the Alliance for Children’s Rights, Leslie has played an instrumental role for three decades in guiding a leading legal rights organization for abused, at-risk, and foster youth. Gilbert-Lurie also served as the Vice-Chair of the Los Angeles Blue Ribbon Commission on Child Welfare.

Leslie spent her earlier career as a television executive at NBC, where she oversaw NBC Productions and the comedy division, co-wrote television episodes for Alf and Saved by the Bell, and co-founded an in- house production company, Lurie- Horwits Productions. She later consulted for USA Network and Disney Television. As a lawyer, Gilbert-Lurie worked at the law firm of Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg and Tunney, and she served as a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Law Clerk for Judge Harry Pregerson.