Biography
Aileen S Lee is the chief of programs and incoming president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. She leads the organization’s strategy, operations, and partnerships to advance its mission of creating positive outcomes for future generations. Aileen brings more than two decades of leadership experience at the foundation, with a career marked by integrity, collaboration, and measurable impact.
Since 2022, Aileen has served as chief of programs, overseeing all grantmaking activity, including program allocations and Adaptive Management and Evaluation. In that role, she guided initiatives across environmental conservation, science, and the Bay Area community, ensuring alignment between program strategy and the foundation’s core values of humility, rigor, and evidence-based philanthropy. Aileen’s previous roles at the foundation included leading the Environmental Conservation Program, as well as developing and leading the Wild Salmon Ecosystems and the Conservation and Markets Initiatives.
Before joining the foundation, Aileen was an associate principal at McKinsey & Company, where she led client engagements in strategy, operations, and organizational effectiveness across multiple sectors. She currently serves on the boards of the Climate and Land Use Alliance, iNaturalist, Legacy Landscapes Fund, and the Marin Community Foundation. Her past board service includes the Environmental Grantmakers Association (as chair), the Biodiversity Funders Group (as president), the Coral Reef Alliance, and the Western Conservation Foundation.
Aileen also volunteers with her hometown of Los Altos Hills as part of the Environmental Initiatives Committee. Born and raised on Long Island, New York, she earned her B.A. in Political Science and East Asian Studies from Yale University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School. She is a member of the California Bar.
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