Admiralty Partners Team

Jon B. Kutler is Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Admiralty Partners. Based in Los Angeles, he is responsible for the strategic direction of the firm and its portfolio of investments. Mr. Kutler began his investment-banking and private equity career on Wall Street in 1984, after serving ten years in various positions in the U.S. Navy. He has worked with Goldman Sachs, The First Boston Corporation and Wasserstein, Perella & Co., specializing in the global aerospace and defense sectors. As the Cold War waned, he foretold a paring of global aerospace and defense spending and resultant glut of capacity that would idle the entire sector, threatening both the security and economy of the victors. In a January 1990 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, Kutler called for “an aggressive merger-and-acquisition environment” to forestall a high-stakes game of musical chairs for survival. Within months, the resultant merger and acquisition activity caused the sector to burst into an era of competition, efficiency and profitability. As a result of his advisory work on transactions in these sectors, Kutler was profiled by Institutional Investor magazine as the leading expert in the industry. In 1992 he founded the Quarterdeck Family of Companies, including Quarterdeck Investment Partners, Inc.; Quarterdeck Investment Partners, LLC and Quarterdeck Investment Partners, Ltd. (both now operating as Jefferies Quarterdeck); Quarterdeck Equity Partners, Inc. and Quarterdeck Public Equities, LLC. In March 2006, Kutler resigned as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Jefferies Quarterdeck (a division of NYSE traded investment bank Jefferies & Company, Inc.) to focus 100% of his efforts in private equity investments under the Admiralty Partners, Inc. banner. Mr. Kutler is a nationally recognized expert in the field of aerospace and defense. His articles on consolidation, restructuring and defense conversion and profiles have appeared in Business Week, The New York Times, Fortune, The Los Angeles Times, Defense News and Aviation Week & Space Technology. Mr. Kutler has testified before numerous Congressional committees with regard to the driving forces and implications of the consolidation of the defense and aerospace contractor base. In addition, he has served as Chairman of the White House Small Business Task Force on Defense Conversion and as a member of an advisory panel established by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment to evaluate the status of the space launch vehicle industry. Mr. Kutler is a Trustee of the California Institute of Technology. He serves as Chairman of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory; a member of the Technology Transfer Committee and a founding member of the Space Innovation Council. Mr. Kutler is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Naval Architecture. He received his master's of business administration degree from Harvard University.