Jessica Leino
King Center on Global Development
Jessica Leino is the Executive Director of the King Center on Global Development. She collaborates with the Faculty Director and steering committee to develop the center’s strategic vision, and oversees the center's research and programs, policy outreach, capacity building, and operations to realize the center’s mission.
She served as the King Center’s deputy director from 2014 to 2019 and the center's interim director from 2019 to 2020, and from 2023 to 2024. Prior to joining Stanford, Leino was a Senior Economist at the World Bank, where her work focused on expanding coverage and improving the quality of social protection programs in South Asia. She joined the Bank in 2008 through the Young Professionals Program.
Leino holds a BA in economics from Harvard, an MPhil in development studies from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in economics from the University of California Berkeley. She has previously worked at the Brookings Institution and as a project evaluation consultant in East Africa. Her research has appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Economics and other academic and policy outlets.