Jennifer Kingston

Jennifer Kingston leads Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) at Edward Jones, helping to build a diverse workforce and grow the firm's impact on clients, colleagues and communities. She and her team provide strategic direction and thought leadership in collaboration with functional leaders and key stakeholders across the firm to create and support DEI business plans and initiatives. She is responsible for helping develop long-term firm DEI strategies and objectives that drive short-term initiatives and activities, as well as prioritizing and sequencing DEI initiatives to address systemic opportunities.  

Jennifer joined Edward Jones in April 2019 to lead the Legal division’s Employment area, which provides legal counsel, guidance and support to business areas – including Inclusion and Diversity, Talent Acquisition and Human Resources. Over the next two years, her leadership expanded to include leading the leaders of Tax, Intellectual Property, Commercial Transactions, Fiduciary and Cash and Lending. In January 2021, Jennifer was appointed to serve as interim co-leader of Enterprise Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and in October 2021 she was selected as the head of Enterprise Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  

After obtaining her undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis and her law degree from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Jennifer served as a law clerk for the U.S. District Court, Western District of Missouri. She then joined Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner and worked in the product liability, class action and commercial litigation groups, served on the firm’s recruiting committee and led the summer internship program. She left the firm as a partner, and from 2010 to April 2019 was a partner in the law firm of Dowd Bennett LLP. She represented clients facing significant, complex and high-stakes civil litigation in state and federal courts throughout the country. Before joining Edward Jones, she frequently represented Edward Jones and its associates in employment and litigation matters.  

Jennifer has served on Susan G. Komen® Missouri’s board of directors since 2011 and currently serves as the board president. Komen Missouri works to save lives by meeting the most critical needs in communities and investing in breakthrough research to prevent and cure breast cancer. Jennifer has also served on the board of directors of Downtown STL, Inc., which serves as a catalyst for creating and promoting a downtown that attracts investment opportunities, economic activity and vibrancy in downtown St. Louis.  

A native of Rolla, Mo., Jennifer resides in St. Louis with Robert Epperson and their children: Ellie, Sam and Jack.