Jonathan Lavine

Special Situations.

Lavine began his career at Drexel Burnham Lambert as a specialist in mergers and acquisitions before becoming a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He joined Bain Capital’s private equity business in 1993 and founded Sankaty Advisors five years later. Lavine was born in Providence, Rhode Island, where he attended Classical High School. He earned his B.A. Magna Cum Laude from Columbia College while serving in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He then obtained an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He has remained active with both institutions. He is Chair Emeritus of the Columbia Board of Trustees and is a former chair of the university’s Board of Visitors. At Harvard, Jonathan and his wife, Jeannie (also a Harvard M.B.A. graduate), established the Lavine Family Humanitarian Studies Initiative which supports the training and education of humanitarian aid workers. The Lavines also founded the Lavine Family Fellowship Challenge Fund to support scholarship aid for first-generation students at Harvard Business School.

Lavine is involved with a wide range of charitable organizations. In 2013, he was named the Chair of City Year's National Board of Trustees, an organization he’s supported since its creation. In 2019, City Year honored him with its 30th Anniversary Legacy Award and Lavine is now Chair Emeritus for the nonprofit.

Jonathan and Jeannie Lavine founded the Crimson Lion Foundation in 2009 to provide financial and advocacy support to many other philanthropic organizations, including Cradles to Crayons, Best Buddies, uAspire, LIFT, WBUR (Boston’s NPR affiliate), the Equal Justice Initiative and many others.

The Lavines also support several Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish World Service and Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston, as well as Columbia/Barnard Hillel at his undergraduate alma mater. The Lavines helped establish the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film, which celebrates excellent documentarians who tell inclusive American stories.

The Lavine Family is also passionate about supporting medical research and patient care. They founded the Lavine Family Fund for Preventative Cancer Therapies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to support research in cancer detection and prevention. They established the Lavine Family Research Initiative at Brigham & Women’s Hospital for migraine research. The Lavines are also avid supporters of Memorial Sloan Kettering and its fundraising organization to fight rare cancers, Cycle for Survival.

In 2012, Lavine was honored with the New England Anti-Defamation League’s Distinguished Community Service Award. In 2015, he was recognized as a Champion of National Service by Voices for National Service. He has received multiple honors from Columbia University, including its John Jay Award for professional achievement, the David Truman Award for his contributions to academic affairs and the Dean’s Leadership Award at the 25th-anniversary reunion of his 1988 graduating class. In 2017, Columbia awarded Lavine the Alexander Hamilton Medal, its highest honor for distinguished service. He has also received the Columbia/Barnard Hillel Seixas Award and Opportunity Nation’s American Dream Award. In 2016, President Barack Obama named Lavine to the Council of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and in 2023 he was re-appointed by President Biden.