Lester Brafman is the Chief Executive Officer of Cohen & Co. Prior to this, he spent 11 years at Goldman Sachs where he served as Chief Operating Officer of Credit and Mortgage Trading and as Head of High Yield and Distressed Trading. Brafman also held several positions at Credit Suisse First Boston, including Head of High Yield Trading and Head of Emerging Market and Sovereign Trading. Before Credit Suisse, Brafman was Director of High Yield Trading at Wasserstein Perella. He began his career in 1988 in High Yield Bond Trading at Lehman Brothers.