Julie Lester serves as Chief Program Officer. Lester recently retired from the Missouri Children’s Division after 28 years of service. She began her career in child welfare as a front line practitioner in 1990, serving in several management positions prior to her appointment in 2005 as Regional Director for the Southern Region and Deputy Director in 2013. Lester holds a master's in social work from the George Warren Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and is certified as a High Performance Transformational Coaching trainer and facilitator.