James has over 30 years of banking and capital markets experience and has established and run investment banking, equity capital markets and fund management platforms in both the US and Europe. James started his career in London and moved to New York in the early 1980s to establish a boutique equity platform, later acquired by Swiss Bank. He then moved to the then Merrill Lynch’s NY HQ as head of international equity distribution.

In the early 90s he was hired as Head of Equity, North America for Deutsche Bank and was Board Member of Deutsche Bank Securities and the Bank’s Global Equity Management board. He was also CEO of Deutsche Bank's NYSE listed $1bn Mutual Funds family and their US based asset management business. In 1997, at the beginning of the technology boom, James moved to Paris to become CEO of the leading global technology investment bank Hambrecht and Quist’s Euromarkets platform which he sold when the parent was acquired by JPMorgan in 2000..

After Paris, James founded and was Senior Partner of Augusta and Co - a London/Frankfurt/Paris based merchant bank specialising in structured and renewable asset finance. He is President of Impact Risk Advisors (a climate change risk focused scientific analysis platform), a visiting Professor of Finance at IE Business School in Madrid and President of Factum Foundation. He is also partner at Berlin Global Advisors, a geopolitical consultancy.