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Howard Lester is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer and has been with Williams-Sonoma, Inc. since he purchased the company in November 1978. Since that time, the company has grown from one brand with four stores and $4 million in annual revenues to a nationwide specialty retailer. Today, Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is comprised of six distinct merchandise brands - Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, PBteen, west elm and Williams-Sonoma Home - with nearly 600 stores, seven mail order catalogs and six e-commerce websites. Mr. Lester took the company public in 1983, and its stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under symbol WSM.
Mr. Lester has held the positions of President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board. He has served as Chairman of the Board since 1986, and previously served as Chief Executive Officer from 1979 to 2001. He was reappointed as Chief Executive Officer in July 2006.
Prior to purchasing the company, Mr. Lester spent 18 years in the computer industry. He began selling computers in 1958, and from 1961 to 1972, created several of his own computer service and software businesses, eventually serving as vice president for the country's then top software company, Computer Sciences Corporation. He subsequently left to develop Centurex Corp., which became one of the leading suppliers of software systems to America's banks in the 1970s. After selling the company in 1976, he "retired," only to purchase Williams-Sonoma a short time later.
In addition to Mr. Lester's leadership of Williams-Sonoma, Inc., he has served on many industry and philanthropic boards during his career. He and his wife, Mary, also actively support education, medical research and the arts.
Mr. Lester presently serves on the Executive Council of UCSF, and the Advisory Boards of the Retail Management Institute of Santa Clara University and the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a national trustee of The First Tee.
Mr. Lester's past board leadership includes Boy Scouts of America, Conner Peripherals Inc., Harold's Stores, Inc., Il Fornaio (America) Corporation, International Association of Shopping Centers, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and The Good Guys, Inc.
In 1991, Mr. Lester endowed The Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation within the Haas School. In 2005, the Lesters endowed a new addition to the University of Oklahoma's Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, designed by acclaimed architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen.
Mr. Lester was born and raised in Oklahoma and attended the University of Oklahoma. Among his many honors, he was elected to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 2001, named Haas School's Business Leader of the Year in 2003, and awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Oklahoma in 2004. In 2007, he was recognized as Lifetime Humanitarian by the Housewares Charity Foundation. | 