Leslie Raenden

Leslie Raenden is partner and chief financial officer at Idealist Capital, an investment firm focused on accelerating the energy transition by providing growth capital to entrepreneurs. 

Prior to joining Idealist in 2022, Raenden worked at various wholly owned subsidiaries within the Power Corporation of Canada group companies. She was executive vice-president of Power Energy Corporation, and board member and chair of the audit committee of Potentia Renewables from 2010 to 2021. For the two decades prior, she held senior positions in finance and investment management at Power Technology Investment Corporation and Power Broadcasting. Raenden began her career at Deloitte as a chartered professional accountant in the audit and assurance department after earning her bachelor of commerce degree from McGill University. 

Raenden is an ardent supporter of the arts and other charitable sectors. She also guided philanthropic investments for the Peter N. Thomson Family Trust. As such, she is behind the largest gift in Concordia Faculty of Fine Arts history — and the largest in Quebec history towards a university-based fine arts program — to support emerging artists with scholarships and with an innovation fund that finances the gap between graduation and starting out as a professional artist.

An outdoor enthusiast now living in the Yukon, Raenden was a longtime board member at Cross-Country Yukon.

Raenden was awarded the Concordia University Alumni Association's Honorary Life Membership in 2024.