SANDRA GUNn

FOUNDER & CEO | BOd | SURVIVOR

LESLIE’S WEEK founder, Sandra Gunn, was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2013. It was then that the full force of what she began as a small tribute for LESLIE’S WEEK came to have real meaning for her. She was diagnosed again with breast cancer in 2017. She is the life force of LESLIE'S WEEK. Her passion for this cause ignites fires of awareness within cancer communities. A mother and survivor herself, she fully understands what Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer women experience. Her vision is to gift Stage 4 MBC women and their families A Week Away from Cancer where they create Memories that Outlast Cancer. She developed an Educational Assistance Fund for the children who are left behind when their mother succumbs to her MBC. Sandra believes that leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality; that a leader is a dealer in HOPE.

Sandra is one of the ten 2016 L'Oreal Paris "Women of Worth" Honorees, selected from more than 6,200 nominations for "Making a beautiful difference in the world." In 2015 she was selected from more than 9.000 nominees as an honoree by Massachusetts General Cancer Center to receive "the one hundred" award given to the "100 Everyday Amazing Groups or Individuals." She won the DeCesaris Cancer Institute's "Fire and Soul" award in 2014, "For the courage to look beyond oneself to bring joy to others." LESLIE’S WEEK has won the GuideStar Platinum Seal of Transparency 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020.

Sandra is the founder of InnerImages, an interior design firm, established in 1983 for the hospitality industry. Sandra is a writer and an award-winning author of two books. Her latest book, TERMINAL…far from the shallow…, was written in collaboration with 30 LESLIE’S WEEK Stage 4 Breast Cancer women and their family members. The first book TERMINAL…Nonfiction Words That Read Like Fiction won the Bronze Medal in the Living Now Book Competition and the Illustration Award in the Reader’s Favorite Book Competition. She traveled extensively in Europe, where she spent time with Piero Busnelli, one of Italy's most inventive manufacturers of high design furniture. She traveled to the Middle East with her husband, where they were the guests of King Faisel and Bedouin Sheikh al Shalaan. She was permitted to create a portfolio of priceless photographs. She is bilingual and earned her BA from the University of Florida and her MA from Auburn University.