James Pitcher is the Head of Z/Yen Benchmarking at McLagan. Z/Yen (acquired by McLagan in 2007) is a leading provider of market intelligence to the financial services industry with a particular focus on post-execution trade processing, operational efficiency and performance.

Mr. Pitcher joined Z/Yen in March 2003, within the financial services practice.  

His background is nearly 30 years in investment banking, mostly at Morgan Stanley, where he rose to the level of Executive Director. Mr. Pitcher served much of his tenure at Morgan Stanley as Head of EMEA Network Management, establishing and maintaining relationships with the firm’s Agent Bank Network for Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India.  

Mr. Pitcher worked within Operations at Morgan Stanley’s investment banking (and earlier global custody) businesses, with particular focus on equities and fixed income products. Mr. Pitcher played a key role in working with Morgan Stanley’s agent banks to ensure a successful transition through conversion to the Euro and Y2K.  

Prior to Morgan Stanley, James had worked in operations at James Capel and W.  Greenwell stockbrokers (now both part of HSBC), and Nikko Securities, where he played a role in Nikko’s back office setup following their ‘Big-Bang’ membership of the UK Stock Exchange.