For professional members, Industry Connect presents free-market perspectives on pressing issues affecting key industries today, featuring dynamic conversations with top business leaders and policy experts from health care to finance, and technology to energy.

Stephens Inc., under the leadership of its Chairman, President, and CEO Warren Stephens, stands out for its strong growth over several decades and successful navigation of the 2008 financial crisis. During his tenure, Warren Stephens has been an outspoken proponent of greater competition and innovation in the financial industry. Recognizing the important connection between capitalism and the American Dream, Stephens also devotes his philanthropy to explaining and celebrating the role free enterprise plays in spurring innovation, lifting people out of poverty, creating jobs, and stabilizing communities. Join us for this Industry Connect event to see how a financial titan understands today’s recession as compared to the 2008 crisis, the role the financial industry plays in accelerating the economic recovery, and the importance of the free market system even as it faces new challenges today.

Warren A. Stephens is Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Stephens Inc., a privately owned diversified financial services firm headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. A graduate of Washington and Lee University, he received his BA in economics and later received his MBA from Wake Forest University. Mr. Stephens was named President and Chief Executive Officer in 1986, succeeding his father, Jack Stephens. Warren was named Chairman in 2005.

Under his leadership, the firm has remained true to its mission of providing capital to middle-market and small-cap companies while expanding into major U.S. markets and opening Stephens Europe offices in London and Frankfurt. Through its public finance arm, Stephens Inc. has been recognized for its integral role in revitalizing local economies, underwriting infrastructure and education projects around the Southeastern United States.

Mr. Stephens has been vocal in his belief that banks should remain modestly leveraged, pointing to his own company’s ability to weather the economic downturn of 2008 without government assistance. He is equally vocal in his support of capitalism, frequently speaking around the country to industry associations, students, and business leaders about capitalism’s unmatched power to lift people out of poverty, create jobs, and stabilize communities.

He has served on the NASD District Conduct Committee, and ended his tenure as its chairman. Mr. Stephens currently serves on the Board of Directors of Dillard’s Inc. and is a former member of the Board of Trustees at Washington and Lee University, and he co-chaired the successful Capital Campaign that concluded in June, 2015.

Civic and community involvements include: chairman of the board of the Arkansas Arts Center; chair of the Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Board (current); co-chair of the Arkansas Arts Center Capital Campaign with his wife, Harriet C. Stephens (current); chair of Episcopal Collegiate School Foundation Board (current); chairman of the Capital Campaign to renovate the current theatre for the Arkansas Repertory Theatre; and the Board of Directors for the Central Arkansas Boys and Girls Club.

Born on February 18, 1957 in Little Rock, Arkansas, he and his wife have three adult children, Miles Stephens (Katie), John Stephens (Mary Olive), and Laura Stephens.