• JONATHAN FARRAR

    Jonathan joined the Investments Office in October of 2014.  Prior to Wesleyan University, Jonathan was a Director at Highmount Capital, a multi-family office where he was responsible for managing the firm’s external investment manager selection and due diligence efforts in the public markets.  Beginning in 2007, Jonathan was a member of the research team at Veritable, LP, a multi-family office where he covered international investment managers for one of the firm’s internally managed commingled investment pools.  Jonathan graduated summa cum laude from Lafayette College with a B.S. in Physics and B.A. in Mathematics and was elected to the college's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the Society of Sigma Xi and Pi Mu Epsilon.  He is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA) and a CFA charterholder.

What do you love about Wesleyan?

The students here are amazingly independent and passionate – maybe I’m too far removed from my college years to remember, but I don’t recall my classmates having such a deep sense of identity at such a young age.  I love being based on campus and seeing how the institution nurtures that independence.

Within the first few months of starting here, I remember eating in the Usdan Marketplace catching up on some reading when someone stood up and started playing their flute.  The whole dining hall quieted down while she navigated a couple of pieces, and when she was done, she just sat down and everyone went back to their business.  It was one of those random experiences that I’ve come to love about Wesleyan.

What inspires you?

There are so many talented people doing amazing things here that it’s easy to draw inspiration from the institution that attracts such great young people.  In my first year here, I had the opportunity to meet Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner when they were on campus for a WESeminar on social entrepreneurship.  I’m sure they don’t remember me, but since then, I’ve been a supporter and even had the opportunity to visit SHOFCO in Nairobi.  If you’ve read their book or heard them speak, it’s hard not to be inspired by what they’ve accomplished together.

Broadly speaking, I’m inspired by independent thinkers who have the courage of their convictions to act.  There are so many challenges that take thoughtful conviction, because the feedback loops are so long to figure out if you made the right decisions or not.  It’s easy to get lost along the way or paralyzed by indecision when you don’t have some guiding principles or strategy to lay an anchor to the windward.  I see this in the endowment’s investment partners and the long-term strategies they’re implementing, but I also see it in parenting my three kids (for which my wife assuredly deserves the credit!).

What do you care about / do for fun?

I used to say, that I used to play golf.  But I guess at some point, you have to stop saying that if you’re not actually playing at all!  My fun time is dictated by my kids – reading, Uno, Mancala, basketball, tee-ball, Jenga, but definitely not Chutes and Ladders!  Any parent of young kids will appreciate the soul crushing feeling you get when you think this game of chance is over, only to have the furthest along go shooting down a slide into last place.  After the kids go to bed, my cocktail aficionado comes out, and I’ll enjoy a beverage watching a game or reading by the fire to recharge.