From humble beginnings to finance leader
Before his start at Waterloo, Chester Dawes (BMath ’99, PDAcc ’99) didn’t know what a high-powered career in finance could look like. To begin with, his parents emigrated from Jamaica in the early ‘70s to start a new life; Chester and his two brothers grew up going to schools in Canada where most kids did not look like them. As a child growing up in an immigrant family environment, Chester’s career goals were quite humble: “My measure of success was a career where I could go on a vacation and not worry about where the money came from.”