Lester heads Kasirer’s nonprofits team, working with clients to develop and implement client strategy for budget appropriations, policy and legislative proposals, and relationship building with key government officials. Lester and his team have achieved extraordinary success with a range of nonprofit clients, spanning the arts to advocacy to social services, positioning clients for new expense initiatives with the City Council, substantially maintaining prior year funding during FY21’s significant budget cuts, securing capital appropriations to support client expansions or renovations, and navigating clients through the contracting process with agencies to enable them to actually draw down on the allocated funds.
Prior to joining Kasirer, Lester was the Director of Government Affairs and Administration at Lighthouse Guild where he oversaw and implemented the organization’s government affairs agenda on a Federal, State and City level. In this capacity he established strong relationships with key government officials, managed outside government affairs consultants, pursued various public finding opportunities, and successfully advanced the organization’s public policy agenda. In that role Lester led the effort to ensure that New York City’s 13,000 yellow taxi-cab fleet was accessible for people who are blind or visually impaired, improved the accessibility of traffic signaling and city streets, and secured more than $1.5 million dollars in public funding for a variety of programmatic initiatives.
Before his time at Lighthouse, Lester served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Council Member James Vacca, where he directed the office’s legislative and policy initiatives, and worked closely on the city’s budget process. As the liaison between nonprofit organizations and the Council Member, Lester oversaw the office’s internal budget process and worked closely with human service advocates on a variety of public policy priorities.
Lester holds a BA from Manhattan College, a Master’s in Public Administration from Pace University, and a Juris Doctorate from New York Law School. He is admitted to the New York State Bar.
Awards
Lester was named to City & State’s “Albany 40 under 40” list in 2021.