Lester Brafman is the Chief Executive Officer of Cohen & Company, Inc. and Cohen & Company Securities, LLC, roles he has held since 2013. He previously spent over a decade at Goldman Sachs as COO of Credit and Mortgage Trading and Head of High Yield & Distressed Trading, and earlier led high-yield and sovereign trading at Credit Suisse First Boston. Lester holds a B.A. from Columbia University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.