James Daunt is a British businessman. He is the founder of the Daunt Books chain, and since May 2011 has been managing director of the book chain Waterstone's

Waterstone's

Waterstone's is a British book specialist established in 1982 by Tim Waterstone that employs around 4,500 staff throughout the United Kingdom and Europe....

.

Life

James Daunt was educated at Sherborne School

Sherborne School

Sherborne School is a British independent school for boys, located in the town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset, England. It is one of the original member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference....

 before reading history at Cambridge University. After working in the United States as a banker for JP Morgan, he founded Daunt Books, a chain of six bookshops in London. In May 2011 he was appointed managing director of Waterstone's by the company's new owner, Alexander Mamut

Alexander Mamut

Alexander Leonidovich Mamut , born January 29, 1960 in Moscow to a family of lawyers, is a businessman and investor. He was previously an advisor to the former Russian government of Boris Yeltsin, and was a friend of Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana Dyachenko. He is best known outside Russia for his...

. The pair were listed at fourth place in a 2011 Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

list of the top 100 people in the British books industry.