Ed Lester

Chief Land Registrar and
Chief Executive Land Registry

Ed Lester formally took up the role of Chief Land Registrar and Chief Executive of HM Land Registry, England and Wales, on 13 May 2013.

An accountant, Ed worked in the oil and banking industries where he was a Treasurer and Head of Corporate Finance for the Finance House of HSBC before he became Chief Executive of Motability Finance in 1994.

Ed left Motability in 2004 to run NHS Direct (January 2004 to October 2008).

After a spell at the Office of Government Commerce, he joined the Student Loans Company as Chief Executive (June 2010 to January 2013) where he led the organisation through a period of major transformation, taking it into the digital world and where it became an early model of the government’s ‘Digital by Default’ programme.

Ed’s interests are art, technology, reading about business, finance and politics, sport (Ed supports Arsenal Football Club), and boating on the River Thames.