Leslie Gross, a Data & Society advisor, is Forward Global’s general counsel and managing director for Americas East, where she is responsible for growing the organization’s membership, organizational impact, and public footprint. Earlier, she served as deputy assistant secretary for homeland security during the Obama administration and as chief counsel to former US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. As partner at Advantage Insights Group, she leveraged more than twenty years as a senior government official, philanthropy executive, civil rights attorney, and nonprofit advocacy director to provide targeted solutions for high-profile, high-stakes challenges at the intersection of policy and politics — including the creation of an international legal defense network for grassroots organizations looking to bring oversight and accountability to authoritarian governments. Gross is also the steward of her family’s intergenerational philanthropy. She received her bachelor of arts in journalism from Howard University and her juris doctor from George Washington University Law School.