Jonathan Kestenbaum

Jonathan Andrew Kestenbaum, Baron Kestenbaum (born 5 August 1959) is the chief operating officerof RIT Capital Partners plc and a Labour member of the House of Lords. He is a former Chief Executive of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA).

Jonathan Kestenbaum was born on 5 August 1959 in Tokyo, Japan. Both his parents' families fled Nazi Germany – first to the United States, then Japan. The family moved to the UK in 1964 when he was five years old.

Kestenbaum is a great-grandson of Joseph Breuer and a great-great-great-grandson of Samson Raphael Hirsch and of Eliezer Liepman Philip Prins.

Kestenbaum graduated from the London School of Economics where he read Economics and Anthropology and then pursued postgraduate study at Cambridge University in the Department of Anthropology. He completed an MA in Education at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and was subsequently awarded a research scholarship in Education at the Hebrew University. On his return to the UK, Kestenbaum earned an MBA with distinction from the Cass Business School. He is a graduate of the Cabinet Office Top Management Programme and a graduate of the Strategic Agility Programme at Harvard Business School. He has an Honorary Doctorate in Technology from the University of Plymouth and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art.

Before becoming active in business, he started his career in education, building an international training programme for young educators.

Subsequently, Kestenbaum was Chief Executive of the Office of the Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks and then Chief Executive of the United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA). Following a restructure which involved a merger with another UK charity, the UJIA won the National Charity Award[1]. He has also worked as Chief of Staff to Sir Ronald Cohen, the Chairman of Apax Partners and was founding Chief Executive of The Portland Trust.

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