Vanessa LEON Biography
Leon is the founder and CEO of Pinchinat Consulting, a women-led international urban planning firm of Caribbean descendants established in the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Ms. Leon is currently pursuing a doctorate in public and urban policy at the New School’s Milano School for International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy in New York City. As a scholar practitioner, her research endeavors to strengthen the institutional capacity for promoting integrated urban development in developing countries like Haiti. She is also an adjunct professor in the Urban Studies Department at Queens College.
In March of this year, Ms. Leon was inducted into the Haitian Roundtable’s 1804 List as one of 2015’s “Top 5 to Watch” among Haitian-Americans. She was also selected for the Next City Vanguard class as one of 2014’s “40 Urban Leaders Under 40” and has been profiled as an emerging professional in a feature article of the American Planning Association’s November 2014 issue of Planning magazine.
She earned a Master of Urban Planning degree, with a concentration in Economic Development and Housing Policy, from New York University’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brandeis University in African and African American Studies and in American Studies, with minors in Education Studies and in Social Justice and Social Policy.
Ms. Leon will work in the Ministry for Planning and External Cooperation (Ministère de la Planification et de la Coopération Externe – MPCE)