He is also the Chancellor of The University of Plymouth, a Director of JPMorgan Japanese Investment Trust plc and a member of the House of Lords.
Kestenbaum is a great-grandson of Joseph Breuer, and a great-great-great-grandson of Samson Raphael Hirsch and of Eliezer Liepman Philip Prins.
He was created a life peer in 2011 as Baron Kestenbaum of Foxcote in the County of Somerset, and sits on the Labour benches.
[4][2] Whilst at NESTA he highlighted the importance of innovation to economic growth[6][7] and was a prominent advocate for UK technology start-ups.
[8][9] In 2010 he was appointed Chairman of Five Arrows Ltd, and subsequently became Chief Operating Officer of the listed investment trust RIT Capital Partners plc.
He was on the Board of the Design Council and Enterprise Insight, and was Non-Executive Chairman of Quest, a large accounting business.
In the same year he became a Trustee of Teach First and also serves as the Vice Chairman of Labour Together as well as on the Board of Windmill Hill Asset Management.