The Ithaka Group

Jonathan S. Linen serves as Chairman and is the central investment decision-maker for the family office. Linen's experience includes serving as Vice Chairman of American Express and President of American Express Travel Related Services — roles that built the corporate-governance and financial-services expertise that inform the office's investment judgment. The office operates with a lean team, meaning principal-level involvement in allocation decisions is high. Specific titles for additional investment staff are not publicly disclosed.

The wealth managed by The Ithaka Group originates from Jonathan Linen's executive career at American Express, where he rose to Vice Chairman over roughly four decades. His compensation included salary, bonuses, and long-term equity incentives accumulated during the company's global expansion. The office was established to manage this corporate-wealth legacy for current and future generations of the Linen family.

The office relies on Jonathan Linen's personal network of corporate executives, board members, and financial-services leaders built through his American Express tenure. This network provides access to off-market private placements and fund opportunities in sectors where Linen has domain expertise: payments, financial infrastructure, and consumer services. Unlike family offices that maintain dedicated origination teams, The Ithaka Group's sourcing model is relationship-driven and concentrated at the principal level.

The Ithaka Group pursues a hybrid deployment model that includes both commitments to external private equity and venture capital funds and direct co-investments alongside trusted sponsors. The fund-commitment strategy allows the office to access diversified manager talent, while direct co-investment opportunities give it concentrated exposure to specific deals aligned with the family's financial-services and real-asset expertise. No public breakdown of the mix between the two approaches is available.

The office has not publicly stated explicit sector exclusions. However, the investment posture — anchored in financial services, consumer platforms, and hard assets — suggests a preference for regulated, cash-flow-generating industries over speculative technology pre-revenue stages. The absence of any track record in biotech, deep-tech R&D, or frontier risk indicates a de facto avoidance of capital-intense scientific venture, consistent with a legacy-preservation mandate.