[12] During the 1980s and 1990s, Leslie provided political counsel to presidential and statewide campaigns in the United States, Latin America, Asia and Africa.
[13] Leslie served as a communications crisis advisor to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the immediate aftermath of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and to American Airlines following the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, he testified before the House International Relations Committee on U.S. public diplomacy programs directed at the Muslim world.
In 2021, he joined the COVID Collaborative, which called for 70 percent of the world's population to be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus by the middle of 2022.
[25] In August 2021, members of the COVID Collaborative, including Leslie, published an open letter to world leaders in The Financial Times calling for urgent action on vaccination.
[26] He is a member of the executive committee of the Partnership for Central America, which seeks to promote inclusive economic growth in the Northern Triangle.
[29] Leslie also became a member of the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center Research Hospital Board.