Tellis Bethel

Corporate executive Tellis Bethel was born on March 5, 1976 in Wichita, Kansas to Tellis Bethel, Sr. and Mei Yueh-Er. Bethel graduated from the Science Academy at Lyndon B. Johnson Early College High School in Austin, Texas. He went on to receive his B.A. degree in business administration from Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia in 1998 and his M.B.A. degree in general finance from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business in Bloomington, Indiana in 2003.

Bethel began his career as an assistant trader for Goldman Sachs and later worked as a senior financial analyst at Dell Technologies. In 2003, he joined Toyota Motor North America in Torrance, California as manager of the treasury. He served as director of finance at Lennox International in 2007 and founded Bethel Securities, LLC the following year. Bethel returned to Toyota Motor North America in 2010 as a finance analytics manager. Over the next fifteen years, he held several positions within the company, including business marketing manager of sales in 2014; senior manager of risk in 2016; general manager of finance and business analytics in 2019; vice president of voluntary protection products in 2021; and group vice president and chief social innovation officer in 2022. In 2023, he became Toyota’s chief diversity officer and was promoted to president and CEO of the Toyota Financial Savings Bank in 2024. During his tenure at Toyota, he oversaw several initiatives including the Way Forward Fund, a multi-year initiative supporting care for children with traumatic brain injuries.

Bethel served as a board member of the Boys & Girls Club of America, North Texas Food Bank, TutorMe, the National Urban League, Junior Achievement USA, and the Nevada Bankers Association. In 2023, he served as a judge for the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’s Social Innovator of the Year Awards.

During his time at Toyota, Bethel received noteworthy honors and awards including the President’s Award for his community service and the Diversity Champion Award in 2022.

Bethel lives with his wife, Crysti, in Allen, Texas. They have two children.

Tellis Bethel was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on June 17, 2023.