Winner of Executive of the Year – Funds Management 2025
After years at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, Jonathan Belz founded BFA Global Investors with a mission to reshape how Asia-Pacific families access the world’s most transformative companies. Today, as Global CEO, he leads with conviction, resilience, and a belief that investing is about more than money, it’s about unlocking human potential.
How did you start down this career path?
I’ve always been drawn to big shifts in human experience – the tectonic forces that shape societies for decades, not just quarters. For me, investing was never about crunching numbers in a spreadsheet; it was about asking: what’s really happening in the world?
At Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, I was “successful” on paper, but I felt like just another number in a vast machine. I wasn’t satisfied with that. I wanted to strip away the constructs, get closer to the source of truth. In investing, that means starting your own business, owning your own decisions, and being as close as possible to the asset itself. That’s where returns are truly made, and where meaning is created.
The story of our lifetimes is defined by the US–China dynamic. I spent years in China learning the language and culture and watching growth at breakneck speed, fueled by a completely different pragmatism. It forced me to question everything I’d been conditioned to believe in Australia – what was truly real versus what I’d been told to believe because it served someone else’s interests. That experience changed me. I knew I had to build something of my own, not just follow the script.
That’s why I started BFA Global Investors: to help families in Australia and Asia participate in the biggest story of our time, not just watch it from the sidelines.
What inspires you in your role/industry? Why?
What inspires me is access to the essence of human brilliance – the ability to touch and experience the most extraordinary people and companies in the world. To me, that is the purest form of human expression: people building something entirely new. When you’re around that, there’s no ceiling to the depth of curiosity or experience you can have.
I don’t want my investors or my family to miss that. To look back and wish they had been closer to greatness when they had the chance. The financial returns matter, of course, but what really inspires me is the education, the journey, the sense of connection that comes from being part of it.
This isn’t just about money. It’s about rewriting generational trauma, creating long-term resilience, and giving my daughters the chance to grow up around innovation and possibility, not scarcity and fear. How could you not be inspired by that?
What’s your approach to customer service that separates you from the rest?
I don’t think of our investors as “clients.” They’re extensions of me and my family.
Most investment firms start from the top down: if I raise $1bn, I’ll earn $20m in management fees, and so on. Investors become the means to an end. We’ve flipped that on its head. The investor’s journey is the end itself. If we get that right – and we’re disciplined about selecting the very best managers and companies – the rest follows, including the returns.
We try to bring vulnerability and freshness into a world that often hides behind jargon and hierarchy. We put our investors in the same room. We share experiences – good and bad. We test assumptions together. We’re open about our fees, conflicts, and mistakes. It’s more of an open-source model than a closed box. That honesty builds trust.
How do you innovate and stay ahead of industry trends?
We treat our business like a living organism. Yesterday’s deal might have been fantastic, but that doesn’t mean today we can coast. What nourished us yesterday may not work today. That mindset forces constant evolution.
Curiosity and humility are the tools. Curiosity pushes us to ask, what’s next? Humility reminds us we don’t have all the answers. My years in China reinforced this. Watching a system grow at breakneck speed but with a totally different logic forced me to question my own conditioning. What’s real, and what’s just ego or narrative?
In today’s dopamine-fuelled world, most people’s decision-making is hijacked by short-term impulses. Just stepping outside that cycle, observing before acting, is a huge differentiator. It shouldn’t be – it’s the natural human state – but it is. That discipline helps us stay sharp and avoid chasing noise.
What is the toughest challenge you’ve faced in your role? How did you overcome it?
One of the toughest moments came early in our journey with the Ant Financial IPO in 2020. We had massive demand – one of the biggest allocations we’d ever lined up. Our tiny team of four or five people threw everything we had into winning that allocation. We worked for months. And then, overnight, the Chinese government cancelled the IPO.
It was painful. Zero. Nothing. Emptiness.
At the time it felt brutal, but in hindsight it was pivotal. If it had listed and then crashed like many other Chinese tech stocks, our investors could have lost 80% or more. More importantly, it forced us to confront who we really were. That moment pushed us to pivot away from trying to be “generalists” in Asia and instead become true US specialists.
If you understand China, you understand why the US remains so compelling. That setback set us on the path to real leadership in this region – and gave us the conviction that still defines us today.
What are some of your goals for the next 5 years?
Professionally, my mission is clear: for BFA to be the #1 partner in Asia-Pacific for both investors and managers. For investors, the obvious choice when they want leverage and access to US private markets. For managers, the obvious partner when they want sticky, exogenous pools of capital from this region – without the conflicts, side-letters, or noise.
Personally, my goals are about presence. Singapore gives me the rare chance to live fully integrated: as a husband, father, and entrepreneur. I want my three daughters to thrive here – to learn Chinese, to make friends from all over the world, to train in music and sport, to grow up with cultural awareness that goes beyond the Australian bubble.
I want more time with my wife, more dancing, more travel across Asia, more focus on food, health, and real connection. And I want to keep fighting the demons that try to build walls and push me back into limiting beliefs. My job as much as anything is to stay grounded in the source of life, not lose myself in the noise. If I can do that, everything else – in business and in family – will take care of itself.
BFA Global Investors Website: https://www.bfainvestors.global
BFA LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bfa-global-investors/
Jonathan Belz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-belz-453b0033/
