James is a senior portfolio specialist and chief operating officer for the Global Emerging Markets Equity team. He re-joined Morgan Stanley in 2006 and has 21 years of investment experience. Prior to re-joining the firm, James was a senior investment strategist at Northern Trust Global Investments. Previously, he was the Latin America equity strategist and later a global equity strategist at Credit Suisse First Boston.

He began his investment career as an international economist at Merrill Lynch and spent nearly two years as a sovereign risk analyst at Morgan Stanley. Before graduate school, he was a reporter in Mexico City with United Press International. James received a B.A. in history from Middlebury College and an M.A. in economics and U.S. foreign policy from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University. ,