Leslie Lindo

Leslie began activism in her formative years – taking on environmental issues in elementary school and human rights issues in high school. She started paying attention to economic disparities along racial lines, inspired by her father’s work to build economic and political power in Black communities across the U.S. through shared ownership models. These early influences have led to two decades of a career embedded within environmental, social, and economic justice movements.

Her strategic mind manifests as a producer, puzzler, and program designer. Leslie is most activated when building new programs and service products, and seeing the big picture from sparks of ideas, finding her sweet spot when she started an incubator and accelerator program to activate vacant spaces with community-determined development projects and businesses, where she explored innovative investment structures with prospective funders.

At Common Future (formerly BALLE), Leslie focused on identifying and advancing solutions to address the wealth disparities in economically marginalized communities. She brought together diverse stakeholders around decolonizing access to capital, racial equity and impact investing, equitable financing tools, democratic governance of financial structures, integrated entrepreneurial ecosystems, and shared ownership of land, housing, and businesses.

Building on the passion and experience through her work at Common Future, she now serves as Managing Director of the Olamina Fund at Candide Group, a loan fund designed to address the lack of access to capital for communities that have faced historic extraction and exclusion from the economy. The Olamina Fund prioritizes supporting Native American communities and organizations in the Deep South and Rural America. In 2023, Leslie was proud to lead the team to full allocation of their $40M phase one goal, with 100% of capital invested into BIPOC- and women-led organizations.