Lester Owens is Senior Executive Vice President and former head of Operations at Wells Fargo & Company, responsible for building a more unified, more integrated approach to Wells Fargo’s business operations functions. As the head of Operations, Lester was responsible for a $5 billion budget and managed a team of more than 80,000 employees globally across Corporate & Investment Banking, Commercial Banking, Wealth Management, Consumer Banking & Shared Services. He is the first African American in the history of the company to be named to the Wells Fargo Operating Committee by Charlie Scharf. Lester is based in New York and has more than 30 years of leadership, risk management, and operations experience in the financial services industry. He joined Wells Fargo from Bank of New York Mellon, where he was Global Head of Operations, responsible for a team of 20,000 employees supporting every stage of the client investment lifecycle, including initiation, account creation, trading, clearing and settlement, and asset servicing. Lester is a man of many firsts, He is currently the Chairman of the board of directors of New Jersey’s largest integrated healthcare delivery system, Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health, Inc. providing treatment and services to 5 million patients each year. He is the first African American to be elected to the role in the hospital’s history. His work is dedicated to healthcare equity and community engagement. Lester is a graduate of Long Island University and the Fairleigh Dickinson Executive MBA program. Lester is a member of The 100 Black Men of America, Inc. and lives by the motto “To whom much is given; much is required”. He married to Barbara Owens, and they have 4 children