James Edward "Jes" Staley (born December 27, 1956) is an American banker, and the former group chief executive of Barclays.

[2] In November 2021, Staley resigned amid a regulatory probe into whether he mischaracterized his relationship with the financier, human trafficker, and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

[5] His father, Paul R. Staley, was president and CEO of PQ Corporation, a chemicals company,[6] who eventually settled the family outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[9] From 1980 to 1989, he worked in the bank's Latin America division, where he served as head of corporate finance for Brazil and general manager of the company's Brazilian brokerage firm.

[5] Staley has also been noted for his work on J.P. Morgan's strategic investment in Highbridge Capital Management by being named as one of the twenty hedge fund superstars at J.P.

[20][needs update] In March 2016, he gave his vision for the future of Barclays' investment bank,[21] although the changes he brought until then were not well received by the markets.

[9] In 2016, Staley attempted to discover the identity of a whistleblower who wrote a letter raising “concerns of a personal nature” about a senior employee.

[26] In May 2017, "email prankster" James Linton began his spree with Staley pranked with an acrostic alluding to the whistleblower affair.

[27] On October 24, 2015, the Daily Mail published an article saying they had seen emails by Jeffrey Epstein indicating he "began arguing for Mr Staley in financial circles in the summer of 2012" while Barclays was searching for a new CEO.

The Times alleged the Daily Mail had received copies of threatening letters from Epstein that were originally sent to Parliament.

[28] On 26th July, 2017, FOIA responses show that UK Parliamentarians including John Mann and Mark Garnier misled the readers of the Daily Mail in this article.

[30] In February 2020, the FCA announced an investigation into whether Staley was "fit and proper" to lead Barclays, due to concerns over his previous disclosures of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

[35] On February 23, 2022, Barclays froze £22 million worth of bonuses for Staley pending investigation into his links to Epstein by the FCA and the PRA.

?” Epstein replied saying his driver whom he described as “former dea [Drug Enforcement Administration]” and “armed,” would pick him up in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands.