James Edward "Jes" Staley, is an American banker, and the group chief executive of Barclays. Staley has nearly four decades of experience in banking and financial services. He spent 34 years at J.P. Morgan's investment bank, ultimately becoming CEO. In 2013 he moved to BlueMountain Capital, and in December 2015, became CEO of Barclays.
Early life
Staley was born on in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Paul R. Staley, was president and CEO of PQ Corporation, a chemicals company, who eventually settled the family outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His grandfather, Edward Staley, was the top executive of W.T. Grant at the time when the company filed for bankruptcy in 1976. His brother, Peter Staley, is an AIDS activist. Jes Staley graduated cum laude from Bowdoin College with a degree in economics.
Career
In 1979, after graduation, Staley joined Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. of New York. From 1980 to 1989, he worked in the bank's Latin America division, where he served as head of corporate finance for Brazil and general manager of the company's Brazilian brokerage firm. In the early 1990s, Staley became one of the founding members of J.P. Morgan's equities business and ran the Equity Capital Market and Syndicate groups. In 1999, he became head of the bank's Private Banking division which, under his leadership, improved profitability threefold during two years. In 2001, he was promoted to CEO of J.P. Morgan Asset Management and ran the division until 2009. During his tenure, J.P. Morgan Asset Management's client assets expanded from $605 billion to nearly $1.3 trillion. Staley has also been noted for his work on J.P. Morgan's strategic investment in Highbridge Capital Management by being named as one of the twenty hedge fund superstars at J.P. Morgan. His contribution to J.P. Morgan becoming a LGBT friendly company was also recognized. In 2009, Staley was promoted to Chief Executive of the Investment Bank. In this position, Staley was responsible for overseeing and coordinating the firm's international efforts across all lines of business. In 2013, Staley left J.P. Morgan after more than 30 years to join BlueMountain Capital as a managing partner. In May 2015, he was elected to the board of directors of the Swiss global financial services companyUBS as a new member of the Human Resources and Compensation Committee and of the Risk Committee. However, on 28 October 2015, it was announced that Staley would become group chief executive of Barclays, effective 1 December 2015. To avoid any conflicts of interest, UBS accepted his resignation from all of his functions at UBS with immediate effect. In March 2016, he has given his vision for the future of Barclay’s investment bank although the changes he has brought until then have not been well received by the markets. Staley has bought 2.8m shares in Barclays at 233p – the lowest price at which they have traded since January. Barclays has a policy that directors should own shares worth four times their salaries, which Staley has now achieved, as his salary currently amounts to £1.2m. However, his total remuneration package, including his salary, a fixed pay allowance to avoid the EU cap on bonuses, annual bonuses of up to £2.1m and a long-term incentive plan of £3.2m, is worth £10m. Staley is a Bowdoin College trustee, serves on the boards of the Institute of International Finance, United States-China Business Council, and is a member of the advisory board of the American Museum of Natural History. Staley's attempts in 2016 to discover a whistleblower's identity were investigated for over a year by British regulators, an investigation which was one of the first tests of the UK's "Senior managers regime", intended to make high-level banking officials personally accountable. On 20 April 2018, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulatory Authority announced that Staley could stay on as CEO, though he would have to pay a fine.. Staley was fined £642,430 by the FCA and Barclays said it would cut £500,000 of his bonus over the matter. In May 2017, "email prankster" James Linton began his spree with Staley pranked with an acrostic alluding to the whistleblower affair. In February 2020 the FCA announced an investigation into whether Staley was "fit and proper" to lead Barclays, due to concerns over his previous disclosures of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Staley told Bloomberg TV that "The investigation is actually focused on transparency, and whether I was transparent and open with the bank and with the board with respect to my relationship with Jeffrey Epstein." Staley told colleagues that he expects to leave Barclays by the end of 2021 and could step down at the annual meeting in May 2021.
Personal life
Staley met his wife Debora Nitzan Staley soon after starting work in South America, "I was Unitarian Boston American and she was Jewish Brazilian São Paulo... I was her parents' worst nightmare." The family has two daughters, and maintains residences on Park Avenue, New York City, and Southampton, New York. Staley is a Boston Red Sox fan and a devoted Democrat who holds fundraisers. In the past, he has donated money to the Democratic Senatorial Committee. Staley has also reportedly been a big advocate for diversity since discovering that his brother Peter had been diagnosed with HIV. He helped push the diversity agenda at J.P. Morgan. As of May 2017, Staley was backing his brother-in-law Jorge Nitzan in a dispute that Aceco, a Brazilian technology company founded by the Nitzan family, have with the private equity firmKKR, also an important client of Barclays. In turn, KKR stopped inviting Barclays to participate in its deal making.
