Background and career
Leslie Herbert Wexner (born September 8, 1937) is an American billionaire businessman and political activist. He is the co-founder and chair emeritus of Bath & Body Works, Inc. He has been the principal in Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria's Secret and La Senza, amongst several other retail corporations. In 1991, Wexner and billionaire Charles Bronfman formed an informal pro-Israel lobby group, called the Study Group or 'Mega Group'. The organization is said to have lobbied for US foreign policy in the Middle East alongside philanthropic activities. Between 1987 and 2007, Wexner retained Jeffrey Epstein as his financial manager, whom he granted significant control of his finances, including power of attorney. Epstein reportedly earned a significant fraction of his wealth through his services provided to Wexner. In 2007, Wexner cut ties with Epstein, who was convicted in 2008 for soliciting a minor for prostitution in Florida. In February 2026, Epstein files releases revealed that the FBI had once listed Wexner as a potential Epstein co-conspirator. Wexner has denied involvement in any of Epstein's offending, and according to Epstein victims' lawyer Brad Edwards, there is no evidence to suggest Wexner was in the company of Epstein during his crimes.
Wexner was born in Dayton, Ohio, on September 8, 1937, to parents Bella née Cabakoff (1908–2001) and Harry Louis Wexner (1899–1975). Both his parents were of Russian-Jewish origin. His father was born in Russia and his mother was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The family claimed before their immigration to the United States that they worked for the Russian Czars. They were from the Minsk Governorate. Cabakoff moved to Columbus, Ohio, as a toddler. They lived on Stauring Street, an alley in South Columbus. Wexner has a younger sister, Susan. Wexner attended Bexley High School and Ohio State University. In 1953, he won a minor award for his essay, published in the Ohio Jewish Chronicle, titled "Why I Love and Respect Judaism". He initially expressed an interest in architecture, but graduated in 1959 with a major in business administration. While a student at Ohio State University, he joined the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity. Wexner served in the Air National Guard. He briefly attended the Moritz College of Law.
Wexner began his retail career working in his parents' clothing store, "Leslie's", which had been named after him. According to Wexner, he began working at his parents' store so they could take a vacation. Wexner analyzed the sales and inventory, identifying the most and least profitable items. When his father refused to adjust the inventory, Wexner decided to open his own store. In 1963, Wexner's aunt lent him $5,000 (equivalent to $53,000 in 2025), which he combined with a matching loan from a bank in order to start The Limited. The store took its name from its focus on moderately priced merchandise, such as skirts, sweaters and shirts, that sold quickly and quickly generated revenue. Wexner opened the first store on August 10, 1963, in the Kingsdale Shopping Center in Upper Arlington, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. One year later, Wexner's parents closed their store and joined their son in running The Limited. He opened the second Limited store in August 1964. He took Limited Brands public in 1969, listed as LTD on the NYSE. A. Alfred Taubman served as a mentor for Wexner, starting in the mid-1960s, and the two partnered on many deals involving Taubman's shopping malls. In 1972, Robert H. Morosky, an active Catholic fund raiser, sold his house and moved into a small apartment in order to buy stock in The Limited and to serve as Vice Chairman of The Limited's board having full confidence and belief in Wexner. Morosky resigned in 1987 and gave a number of interviews decades later criticizing Wexner's closeness with Jeffrey Epstein. Wexner expanded The Limited considerably in the 1970s, having opened the 100th store in 1976. He took on significant debt in 1978 to purchase the importer Mast Industries, which provided him with essential business advantages over competitors. In 1982, Wexner spent $105 million to purchase the much larger Lane Bryant retail chain of plus-sized clothing which came with $30 million in debt and acquired the lingerie business Victoria's Secret from Roy Raymond for an undisclosed amount of stock, and $1 million with Raymond later describing Wexner as "very guarded", stating, "When I met him, it was as if he met the devil." Six months later, when Raymond was facing bankruptcy, he contacted Wexner and offered to sell Victoria's Secret. By 1992, Victoria's Secret was worth an estimated $1 billion, and became known for the use of supermodels featured in an annual fashion show, overseen by Ed Razek. In 1993, Wexner hired Len Schlesinger, a Harvard Business School professor, whom he later appointed as a company director, to advise him. Over the years, Wexner built L Brands, a retailing and marketing conglomerate that included Victoria's Secret, Pink (Victoria's Secret for teens), Bath & Body Works, Henri Bendel, The White Barn Candle Company, and La Senza. Previous brands that were spun off include Lane Bryant, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lerner New York, The Limited Too (now Tween Brands, Inc.), Structure 9, Aura Science, The Limited (which closed its brick-and-mortar stores while retaining its online presence), and Express (which closed its Canadian stores and hundreds of its U.S.-based stores). In 2012, CNN Money described Wexner as the longest serving CEO of a Fortune 500 company. He was on Harvard Business Review's Top 100 Best Performing CEOs in the World, ranked number 11 in 2015, and number 34 in 2016. In February 2020, Wexner announced that he was transitioning from CEO of L Brands into the role of chair emeritus.
Wexner was on the board of directors of Banc One from at least 1986 to 1991. Until 2002, he also sat on the Board of Directors of Hollinger International together with Henry Kissinger. He also served on the board of Sotheby's, American Ballet Theatre and the Whitney Museum of American Arts.
In 1987, Wexner's friend Robert Meister recommended he meet Epstein for financial advice. By this stage, Epstein's firm was offering tax planning to wealthy clients. Epstein was later hired by Wexner, and reportedly won over his trust by telling him that one of his financial advisors, Harold Levin, was stealing from him. According to Levin, Epstein's had falsely accused him – and he resigned after attempting to convince Wexner that his new financial advisor was untrustworthy. According to a New York Times investigation, Epstein sowed fear in his wealthy clients, by convincing them "that their finances were a mess, that their advisers and even family members were inept or exploiting them and that only one man had the wherewithal to save them". Wexner granted Epstein significant control of his businesses and finances. In July 1991, Wexner granted Epstein power of attorney and also instated him as a trustee on the board of the Wexner Foundation. Several of Wexner's colleagues were concerned about Epstein's growing influence over the billionaire. With control of his finances, Epstein reportedly began paying himself significant sums. He purchased his mansion in Palm Beach, and began spending time with Donald Trump, attending parties at Mar-a-Lago featuring calendar girls. Wexner purchased his New York property, the Herbert N. Straus House, in 1989 and sold it to Epstein in the mid-1990s following Wexner's marriage to Abigail.
In the mid 1990s, several executives of L Brands reported concerns that Epstein was misrepresenting himself as a recruiter for Victoria's Secret models. In 1997, an aspiring model Alicia Arden filed a police report in Los Angeles, alleging that Epstein had presented himself as a recruiter for Victoria's Secret, met her in a hotel room, and attempted to undress and "manhandle" her. A year prior, in 1996, artist Maria Farmer reported to the FBI that Epstein had allegedly stolen her photos of her teenage sisters, while she was on an artist residency at Wexner's property in Ohio. In early 2006, Epstein was charged in Florida with "multiple counts of molestation and unlawful sexual activity with a minor." The New York Times reported that in 2007, 18 months after the charges were filed, Wexner cut his ties with Epstein. Epstein was convicted in 2008. In August 2019, following Epstein's second incarceration and prior to his death, Wexner addressed the Wexner Foundation, releasing a written statement that his former financial advisor, Jeffrey Epstein, had "misappropriated vast sums of money" from him and from his family. Wexner retained the services of Debevoise & Plimpton criminal defense attorney and former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Mary Jo White. Following the passage of the 2025 Epstein Files Transparency Act, Wexner faced additional public scrutiny. In January 2026, Wexner was subpoenaed by the US House Oversight Committee of Congress to sit for a deposition. In February 2026, Wexner was named as being on a July 2019 list of potential Epstein co-conspirators within an FBI email. However, according to Epstein victims' lawyer Brad Edwards, there is no evidence to suggest that "Wexner was in Epstein's company at the time of his crimes."
