Martin Paisner attended St Paul’s School, London (1956-1961), the Sorbonne, Paris (1961-1962), Worcester College, Oxford (1962-1965) and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, USA (1966-1967). He obtained an MA from Oxford and an LLM from Michigan.
Martin qualified as a solicitor in January 1970 and became a partner with Paisner & Co in 1972 (that firm having merged with Berwin Leighton to form Berwin Leighton Paisner in May 2001). He has specialised throughout his career in the areas of charity law and private client practice. Apart from work of a general estate planning nature, including the application of trusts of a domestic and offshore nature both for UK and overseas clients, he has also been instrumental in developing the firm’s acknowledged role as a leading adviser to charities (both functional and grant-making). He is a trustee of a great many family trusts and charities.
Martin is a member of the Garrick Club and the Reform Club. He is an Honorary Fellow of Queen Mary College, University of London and Honorary Doctor of the University of Glasgow. He was appointed CBE in June 2004.
He is married with four children and his hobbies include antiquarian book collecting (18th and 19th century literature) as well as pre-First World War travel.
Jonathan Kestenbaum is Chief Operating Officer at RIT Capital Partners PLC, the publicly quoted investment trust founded by Lord Rothschild.
Jonathan was previously Chief Executive of NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.
He studied at the London School of Economics and at Cambridge University.
Jonathan is a graduate of the Cabinet Office Top Management programme as well as the Strategic Agility programme at Harvard Business School.
He is a trustee of a number of charitable foundations and is a Board member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as sitting for five years on the Government's Technology Strategy Board (T.S.B.).
Jonathan is an Adjunct Professor at Imperial College Business School and previously on the faculty of the Cass Business School. He has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Technology from the University of Plymouth and an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal College of Art.
Jonathan spent several years as Non-Executive Chairman of Quest, a large investigative accounting firm, and is currently on the Board of Profero, one of the UK’s leading digital marketing companies. He is Chairman of the Manchester Science Panel and he was also a commissioner on the Manchester Independent Economic Review.
In January 2011 Jonathan Kestenbaum was appointed to The House of Lords and became Lord Kestenbaum of Foxcote.
Ari grew up in Glasgow, Jerusalem and London. He read law at the University of Westminster in London and received his MPhil in Theology from the University of Cambridge. Ari is a qualified solicitor and is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the Office of the Chief Rabbi.
Previously Ari worked at City law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) where he advised clients on complex strategic arrangements for the provision of critical services and infrastructure across a number of sectors.
Ari was an active member of Bnei Akiva for many years, sitting on its national executive. He was part of the Lifelong Learning Committee at the London School of Jewish Studies responsible for the educational programmes that formed the prototype for the current LSJS curriculum structure. Ari is one of the founders of the Yoni Jesner Foundation and is its current Chairman.
Ari loves cycling, rugby and snowboarding. He has a keen interest in theology and politics.
Ari is Yoni’s eldest brother. He lives in London with his wife and three children.
In 2001 Jared graduated with a degree in Theoretical Physics from UCL. He then pursued a career in banking, trading currency derivatives at both JP Morgan and Dresdner Kleinwort.
To broaden his experience further Jared then joined the Royal Dutch Shell management programme in 2005 with a focus on their fuel retailing business. In this role Jared managed a team of Shell and IBM resources responsible for technology strategy and project delivery across the globe.
Jared resigned from Shell in August 2010 to work full time on developing a new business venture.
He lives in London with his wife and three children.
David Cohen was educated at Edinburgh University and Harvard Business School. He worked with Goldman Sachs in New York and London. Thereafter he was Managing Director of a UK private textile group and then a director of Alexon Group PLC.
In 1993 he joined Perot Systems Corporation where he held a number of roles, ultimately as Chairman of Perot Systems, Europe and India. He left in 2005 to establish a private equity investment group in India focusing on real estate.
He is currently Chairman of F & C REIT India, its joint venture companies in India and a partner in a private investment fund.
David also serves on the Boards of a number of NGO’s