Robert H Lessin

Robert H. Lessin, a longtime Wall Street banker and technology angel investor, died on in August 2011. He was 56. The cause of death was not disclosed in a note sent Tuesday morning to employees of Jefferies & Company, where Mr. Lessin was vice chairman. A person close to the family would only say that he died after a long illness. Mr. Lessin had spent more than three decades as an investment banker, holding senior titles at Morgan Stanley, Salomon Smith Barney and Wit Capital, a boutique investment banking firm. A graduate of Harvard University and its business school, Mr. Lessin started his career at Morgan Stanley, where he rapidly ascended the ranks, becoming in 1987 the youngest partner in the firm’s history. In the 1980s, Mr. Lessin was instrumental in building Morgan Stanley’s advisory business for buyout firms, creating an in-house think tank that identified the best transactions for companies and buyout firms. Mr. Lessin moved on to become vice chairman at Salomon Smith Barney, where he led the firm’s investment bank. By 1996, Mr. Lessin was becoming increasingly involved in the flourishing technology sector. As one of the first East Coast angel investors, he wrote checks to dozens of start-ups. Then in April 1998 — in the thick of the technology boom — Mr. Lessin left Salomon Smith Barney to focus on technology. After leaving Salomon Smith Barney, Mr. Lessin officially joined Wit Capital, then a two-year-old technology investment bank. He also founded Dawntreader Ventures, a venture capital fund. Wit Capital eventually merged with the SoundView Technology Group, which was later acquired by Charles Schwab. Still, Mr. Lessin had persistent health problems. In 1994, he suffered a major stroke that limited his coordination and his senses, including the ability to detect hot and cold. As vice chairman, Mr. Lessin pushed Jefferies to expand its global ambitions, putting his fingerprints on the company’s growing European and Asian operations, and he prodded the firm to innovate its technology platform. He is survived by his wife, Clara Wong, and his children, Daniel, Kara and Sam Lessin, a technology entrepreneur, who works as a product manager at Facebook.