[1] He is credited, together with Johann I. de Verpoorten, a Flemish merchant, for establishing maritime trade with the United States of America, few months after the British surrender in October 1781.
Shortly after arriving in Trieste, he soon brought three of his brothers over from Hercegovina getting one to set up a branch of the business in western Turkey at Smyrna, the other in Amsterdam and the third one in Vienna, and Prague.
[5][6] They were in a way Jovo's trading ambassadors, through whom, for a short while, they gained a lot of wealth with more of their shops appearing around town and several residential buildings.
[7] Giacomo Casanova was commissioned by the Venetian government to investigate and report on Kurtović's economic progress in Trieste.
[2] Jovo Kurtović who lived to the age of 91 and died in Trieste, then part of the Napoleonic empire, in 1809,[10] was kum (godparent) to numerous Serbs of Trieste: Cvetko Jovanović, Antonia Kvekić, Josif Miletić, Jovan Nikolić, Dimitrije Rajović, Stefan Riznić (father of Jovan Riznic, Dragutin Teodorović, and Petar Teodorović.