About Us

James Allen joined Hilliard Lyons in 1981 and has served as Chairman and CEO since 2004. Jim is active in the financial services industry and with the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, where he currently serves on the board as board chairman.
Jim is involved civically in Louisville, where he is the current Board Chairman of the Jefferson County Public Education Foundation and the 2018 board chair of Greater Louisville, Inc., Louisville’s Chamber of Commerce. He is the former Chairman of the Fund for the Arts, and he chaired the 2016 Metro United Way Campaign for Greater Louisville.
He also serves on the Advisory Board for the University of Louisville School of Business, the Board of Trustees of Bellarmine University, and the Dean’s Advisory Council for the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University.
Jim holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from DePauw University and an MBA in finance from the Ohio State University. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst®.

Tom Kessinger III became President of Hilliard Lyons in May of 2017. After graduating with a BS in accounting in 1993 from the University of Kentucky, he joined his grandfather at Hilliard Lyons as a Financial Consultant in the firm’s Lexington branch. During the next 15 years (until his grandfather retired), Tom grew an existing book of business from $80 million to over $350 million in assets. Until he assumed his new role as President, Tom led the Kessinger-Lee Financial Group, a six-person team in the firm’s Lexington-Beaumont office. His former team members have assumed responsibility for serving most of his clients.
Tom’s community involvement has included serving on numerous boards, including those of Worldwide Hearts & Hands, Lexington Philharmonic, and Child Development Center of the Bluegrass, where he served as board chair. Tom was also the Campaign Chairman of LexArts and Dynamic Doors.

Alan serves on both the Executive Team at Hilliard Lyons and the board of Hilliard Lyons Financial Services, LLC. Alan had been at the firm’s Evansville branch for nearly four decades. Under his leadership, the Evansville office grew from 6 Financial Consultants to 26, and was named as the top-performing branch of Hilliard Lyons in 2010.
Alan has served as president of the Evansville Police Department Foundation Board of Directors and of the University of Southern Indiana Business School Board of Visitors. He has also served on other boards, including the Southwest Indiana Mental Health Association Foundation, the Evansville Chamber of Commerce, and the Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, among others.