Jonathan grew up in Madrid in the 1980s and his parents started a drug rehab among heroin addicts. Almost all had shared needles and were HIV+. They became his older brothers and sisters, and many died of AIDS.

Jonathan earned a BA with Highest Honors in History and Honors in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After receiving a Rhodes Scholarship, he earned a M.Litt. in Modern History from the University of Oxford. 

He went on to start an investing career as an equity analyst at SAC Capital and then as a Vice President in proprietary trading at Bank of America. Along the way, with his friend and partner Turi Munthe, he founded Demotix, a citizen-journalism website and photo agency. They sold Demotix in 2012 to Corbis, a company owned then by Bill Gates. He also founded Variant Perception, a company that provides investment research to asset managers.

He is now the Chief Investment Officer of Prevatt Capital, an asset manager that makes deeply-researched investments in quality companies with a fundamental value-driven approach.