James Usmar

James supports clients in navigating the UK policy landscape with a particular focus on economic policy, and joined FGS Global from Global Counsel, where he led strategic accounts across a wide range of UK policy issues including equity finance and infrastructure and led client analysis on fiscal events. He also spent time in-house at a major US brokerage leading on UK and EU government affairs.

Prior to joining FGS Global, James spent nearly a decade in the UK civil service, most recently at HM Treasury where he was head of innovation finance, leading work to improve access to finance for start-up and scale-up businesses and overseeing the British Business Bank’s equity programmes. In this role, he advised the Chancellor of the Exchequer on how to unlock more capital from institutional investors for growth, culminating in the 2023 Mansion House Compact.

James has extensive experience of developing and leading successful Budget and spending-review bids from both inside HM Treasury and previous roles in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, where he was head of tech sector strategy, providing strategic advice for ministers on how to accelerate the growth of the UK’s tech sector. While at HM Treasury James also worked on international economic policy at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), G7 and G20 as well as domestic pensions policy.