The millionaire investment banker who allegedly slugged a woman in the face during a Pride event in Brooklyn over the weekend once touted the importance of having “empathy” and an “understanding” of others.
Jonathan Kaye, a managing director at Moelis & Co., was identified by social media users as the man caught on camera punching the woman and sending her crashing down onto a Park Slope street Saturday night.
In the wake of the brutal footage going viral, a podcast interview the Wall Street executive gave last year quickly resurfaced in which he preached about mentoring junior bankers and the keys to success.
“You should learn the hard skills as fast as you can, but in the end, it’s really the skills of grit and resilience, learning how to listen, understanding what is motivating other people, and empathy — those are the indispensable skills that separate you from a calculator,” he told the “LSE Focal Point Podcast.”
Elsewhere in the wide-ranging interview, Kaye spoke about his “rough” start in the industry and how “Wall Street could be a merciless place.”
“I learned some of the basic concepts that probably seem obvious, but when you’re in your 20s, you kind of have to learn them all from scratch,” he said.
“Those are things like doing what you say you’re going to do, being consistent, carefully managing your reputation, carefully managing difficult people, and staying away from toxic people.
The interview came to light after Kaye’s New York-based investment bank confirmed it was probing the Saturday night violence.
“We have become aware that one of our employees was involved in a serious incident in Brooklyn on June 8. We take this matter very seriously and are conducting an investigation,” a spokesperson for Moelis & Co. told The Post.
The company wouldn’t confirm if the employee in question was Kaye or whether he was facing any disciplinary action.
Kaye, who has overseen the Global Business Services franchise at Moelis & Co. since 2013, declined to comment when reached by The Post.
The viral clip, which doesn’t show the moments leading up to the smackdown, captured a flustered Kaye allegedly walking away from the woman with his jacket streaked with liquid.
“She f–king threw s–t all over me,” the man, believed to be Kaye, can be heard saying as onlookers screamed that the attacker was an “a–hole” and a “horrible person.”
The viral clip, which doesn’t show the moments leading up to the smackdown, captured a flustered Kaye allegedly walking away from the woman with his jacket streaked with liquid.
The woman claimed she was left with a broken nose following the alleged attack.
The NYPD said it didn’t have any information on the incident. Prior to his current role, Kaye worked at Citi Bank as managing director of its Global Mergers & Acquisitions Group.
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