James Daunt

Achilles James Daunt[4] was born on 18 October 1963,[5] the son of the diplomat Sir Timothy Daunt and his wife Patricia Susan Knight. He was educated at Sherborne School, before reading history at Pembroke College, Cambridge University.[6]

His first job was as a purser with Carnival Cruise Lines.[5] After working in the US as a banker for JP Morgan, he founded Daunt Books,[7] a chain of six bookshops in London. In May 2011 he was appointed managing director of Waterstones by the company's new owner, the Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut.[8] The pair were listed at fourth place in a 2011 Guardian list of the top 100 people in the British books industry.[9]

Daunt was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2017.[10][11]

In 2020 Daunt was criticised for arguing that a bookshop was “essential” during the global coronavirus pandemic, keeping the shops open as competitors and other non-food retail businesses closed. Waterstones, led by Daunt, also made no effort to distribute hand sanitiser or protective gloves to its employees despite their close interactions with customers.[12]

He is married to Katy Steward, a health professional, they have two daughters Molly and Eliza, and live in a 4-storey house in Hampstead.[13][14] They have a second house in Suffolk, and a third in Scotland.[14]