Leslie Hale is the President and Chief Executive Officer of RLJ Lodging Trust, a leading hotel real estate investment trust. Since joining RLJ in 2005, Ms. Hale has played a pivotal role in setting and executing the strategic vision at RLJ. Ms. Hale has held progressively senior roles at RLJ – she was appointed to Chief Financial Officer in 2007, Chief Operating Officer in 2016 and Chief Executive Officer in 2018. Hale helped successfully lead the execution of the initial public offering (IPO) of RLJ in 2011 and is on RLJ’s Board of Directors.
In addition to her work at RLJ, Ms. Hale currently serves on the Delta Airlines, Inc. (NYSE: DAL) Board of Directors, is Chair of the Howard University Board of Trustees, a Board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond’s Baltimore Branch, and Former Chair of the American Hotel & Lodging Association. Other organizations in which she is a member are the MINA Advisory Board, NAREIT Advisory Board of Governors, IREFAC, and The Real Estate Roundtable.
Before joining RLJ, Hale held senior positions at GE – working in GE’s Commercial Finance Mergers & Acquisitions Group and GE’s Real Estate Strategic Capital Group. Ms. Hale was also an investment banker with Goldman Sachs, advising on mergers, acquisitions and corporate finance. Hale earned a BBA from Howard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was a Goldman Sachs and Toigo Fellow.