Bro. Wilson Lester to leave Piedmont Business Capital for statewide venture

Wilson Lester has spent the past five years repositioning Piedmont Business Capital and growing the Greensboro-based, community-minded investment fund’s impact tenfold.
Now, he’s moving on to a bigger challenge. Lester is departing to take on a new venture with a similar aim that will continue to serve minority entrepreneurs across the state of North Carolina, specifically those seeking equity to grow and scale their economic footing.
Lester will step down as executive director of Piedmont Business Capital on June 30. He will then become a managing partner of Partners in Equity (PIE), which he founded last year with Durham-based entrepreneurs Napoleon Wallace and Talib Graves-Manns.
They are starting the Impact Investment Fund after receiving $7.5 million from one family-owned fund that saw significant alignment with PIE’s goal “to serve minority entrepreneurs across the state of North Carolina, specifically those seeking equity to grow and scale their economic footing.”
“There is an entire class of opportunity that requires equity to pursue. There are many entrepreneurs who don’t have access to that. Our fund fixes that,” Lester said.
Lester said the three partners share a passion for helping minority business owners.
“We’re three guys in the economic development system in North Carolina who have been sounding boards for each other and ideating together on how we could get more investment in black and brown businesses across the state.”
Starting on a low note
The threesome saw the need for greater access to capital with the theme of equity a few years ago, founded the business in 2019 and were funded in 2020.