Wintrust Financial Corporation and its foundational banking network were initiated by a group of experienced banking professionals led by Ed Wehmer, who opened the organization's very first community bank, Lake Forest Bank & Trust, in Lake Forest, Illinois, back in December 1991. Over more than three decades of strategic expansion, the founding leadership team scaled the enterprise from a single storefront location into a multi-bank holding company, establishing a decentralized network of community-focused subsidiary banks across the region while maintaining core relationship-driven banking principles.