Millionaire banker who punched lady preached significance of ’empathy’

The millionaire investment banker who was filmed punching a woman in the face, causing her to fall to the ground, on the streets of New York preached the importance of ’empathy’ and ‘understanding’ in an interview last year.

Jonathan Kaye, 52, was recorded throwing a vicious overhand right at the unnamed woman in Brooklyn on Saturday evening. The woman is seen being thrown to the floor by the force of the punch. It is unclear what sparked the confrontation. 

Kaye works as a Managing Director at Moelis & Company, a leading investment bank with offices in Midtown Manhattan. The company has spurred an investigation into the incident, a spokesperson previously confirmed to DailyMail.com.

The Wall Street executive, a married father-of-three, revealed during a podcast interview in May 2023 that he often mentors junior bankers and identified the skills he believes are critical to having a successful career.

Kaye told the LSE Focal Point Podcast that a successful person demonstrates ’empathy’, is ‘understanding’ of others, and exercises good decision making skills, including ‘managing your reputation’.

Kaye is a partner managing director and a head of business services at Moelis.

In his current role, he oversees 10 verticals within Moelis’s Business Services faction, managing ‘a dedicated team of bankers and… an extensive network of relationships with both strategic companies and private equity investors,’ according to his profile on Moelis’s website.

He also serves on the firm’s Management Committee, demonstrating his status in the financial sector, and does a ‘fair amount of mentorship’ with junior staff, Kaye told the podcast.

He shared that he advises his mentees and aspiring bankers that they won’t have the ‘freedom’ to work in the roles they want until they ‘achieve one precious thing – judgement’.

‘Any job that you want to have eventually in finance – whether it’s advising companies, managing money, deploying capital or leading a company operationally – you’re going to have that position because of judgement,’ Kaye said.

He argued that while entry-level positions in finance and investment banking ‘really accelerate your judgment in a way that’s remarkable’, the most successful people in the industry ‘really invest in your experience’ at the company as a whole.

‘That means not just hard work, but focus on putting yourself in firms, in positions, and with people who can give you the most packed volume of experience that you possibly can,’ he advised.

‘Pay attention and focus on the people, you admire because they’re likely succeeding for a reason.

‘So yes, you should learn the hard skills as fast as you can, but in the end it’s really the skills of grit and resilience, learning how to listen, understanding what is motivating other people, and empathy – those are the indispensable skills that separate you from a calculator.’

Kaye holds a BA from Tufts University, where he studied history and organic chemistry, and graduated cum laude from the Duke University School of Law. 

During his ten years at Moelis, Kaye helped the firm ‘become a market leader with over 125 executed transactions representing over $100 billion in collective enterprise value,’ according to the The Jewish Grad Organization.

But before working at Moelis, Kaye held positions at JPMorgan and Jefferies.  

He told the podcast that as someone who entered the banking sector without a background in finance, he had a ‘rough’ start to his financial career.

‘They were difficult years, but I learned a lot,’ he said of his transition into banking. ‘I learned I was as not as special as my mother told me I was.

‘I learned that Wall Street could be a merciless place and that and the rewards – and I don’t mean compensation, I really mean opportunities, mentorship attention, the opportunity to work on the best situations, those things – followed those, who did good work and did good work, consistently.’

He said that in addition to having to familiarize himself with the basic financial concepts that his peers had learned during their collegiate studies, he also had to learn how to navigate the industry as a whole.

Kaye added: ‘I learned some of the basic concepts that probably seem obvious but when you’re in your 20s you kind of have to learn them all from scratch. 

‘Those are things like doing what you say you’re going to do, being consistent, carefully managing your reputation, carefully managing difficult people, and staying away from toxic people.

‘This was also a time in finance where they were just, they were just less rules and people were kind of rougher than I think the environment is today.’

Kaye was filmed punching a woman in the face on Saturday, causing her to fall to the ground.

Video shows him throwing a vicious overhand right at the unnamed woman in Brooklyn – where he lives in a $4million four-bedroom townhouse in pricey Park Slope.

The woman is then thrown to the floor by the force of the punch, as one onlooker unsuccessfully rushes to her aid. 

Others looking on are heard calling Kaye an ‘a**hole’ and telling him to ‘go f**k himself’ – earning his attention briefly before he abruptly walks away.

The footage, meanwhile, is short and shaky, but includes a moment where Kaye turns to the camera after knocking the woman to the floor.

Kaye walks off, holding a bag in one hand, with a wet stain on the back of his blazer. 

In one clip containing a caption overlaid over the footage, a user wrote: ‘This guy punched me in the face today and broke my nose. [He also] busted up my friends[sic] arm… can anyone find him?’

A spokesperson for his employer confirmed to DailyMail.com that Kaye is the man seen in the viral video, and said that it has already spurred an investigation.

‘We have become aware that one of our employees was involved in a serious incident in Brooklyn on June 8,’ a Moelis representative said, as the 12-second snippet continues to gain traction online.

‘We take this matter very seriously and are conducting an investigation,’ she added.

The context of the punch-up is still unclear. 

Although Moelis is probing the incident, as of writing, it remains unknown whether it has been reported to the NYPD. DailyMail.com has contacted police for comment.