Before founding Birchstone, James founded the Corporate Treasury business at Investec Bank, taking it from humble beginnings to one of the largest mid cap treasury businesses in the UK, with revenues of £60m+, over 2,000 clients, and corporate cash of over £3.5bn. He eventually became Chief Client Officer of the bank. Prior to that, James spent 10 years learning his trade at Travelex. He thrives in environments that demand entrepreneurial flair, and started Birchstone because he saw the opportunity to innovate and do something different in treasury. When not at work, James loves to spend time with his wife and three kids. He enjoys mentoring, working with charities, sport, and has even dabbled in a bit of ballet.

Jonathan has spent the majority of his career in banking, beginning at HSBC before joining Investec, where he became Head of FX Dealing and then eventually ran the Corporate FX business for five years. The opportunity to be involved in the launch of Birchstone, with the vision and belief to build an exceptional business, was compelling enough for him to make a big life decision and make the leap out of banking. With a fourth child on the way, he will forever be tagged with the line ‘you don’t do things by halves’ , and there is never a dull moment in his life at home with family or at work with the team. When he does get a spare minute he loves supporting his beloved West Ham United and keeping fit, or at least pretending to.

Having studied Finance & Accounting for three years at university, Devonshi felt her degree would set her up well for a career in Banking… little did she know life in the real world consisted of a lot more than just eight hours of “study” a week. In 2014 she joined the Investec Bank graduate programme, where she spent 7 years. Her passion for building meaningful relationships led her to join the FX Sales team, looking after both Corporate and Institutional clients. The opportunity to join Birchstone and build a business that's unique in the market was one she just couldn’t turn down. Outside of work she enjoys travelling (or just topping up her tan on a beach), keeping fit, and she's currently working to improve her cooking skills… starting from burnt toast.

After graduating from university, he spent time travelling in five different continents before settling down in Australia for a year. Instead of becoming a lifeguard on Bondi Beach, he sold life insurance for Citibank. Since then, he's worked for over a decade at banks (Investec and Raphaels) and FX brokerages (EarthportFX), helping clients to understand and mitigate their FX risk. The opportunity to be part of the founding team at Birchstone is the most exciting of his career. He believes what we offer is unique and will finally help clients cut through the “noise” in FX markets. Outside of work he's hanging onto playing football by a thread whilst attempting to a transition into golf. He's also a keen traveller and have just one Wonder of the World left to tick off.

After poor eyesight put an end to his dream career as a fighter pilot, he began to take a serious interest in economics and markets. In the early part of his career he thought that clients valued attempts to predict markets. The Global Financial Crisis quickly taught him those early attempts were futile, and that clients really valued those who took the time to understand their unique business objectives and the way markets can affect them. After over 15 years working in Foreign Exchange at the broker Moneycorp (3 years) and Investec Bank plc (12 years) the opportunity to join the highly skilled team at Birchstone – who all felt things can be done differently – was too hard to resist. Outside of work he loves to go cycling as much as he can, and if the weather allows it he's fond of the odd camping trip.