James Max (born 1970) is a journalist and radio presenter specialising in business issues. He presents programmes for London speech radio station LBC 97.3. He was a semi-finalist on the first series of the British version of The Apprentice television programme.[1]
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Born in London in May 1970, James is the youngest of four brothers. Richard Max is a specialist planning lawyer, Edward Max an actor and Director of the Frinton-on-Sea summer repertory theatre and Robert Max a cellist. Robert has had a notable career, touring the world as part of the renowned piano trio, The Barbican Piano Trio.[2]
James went to St Paul’s School in London and left in July 1988 with three A-levels. In October 1989, he went to the University of Reading and in 1992 graduated with a first-class BSc honours degree in Land Management. He joined DTZ, a firm of property advisors, to undertake his professional training to become a Chartered Surveyor. He passed his Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) in 1994 and became a member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS). In 1995 he became an Associate Director and in 1997 was promoted to Director.
Whilst at DTZ, he worked with Rob Andrew, the former England rugby fly-half, in the international investment team. In 1998, he left the firm to join Morgan Stanley, the US investment bank. He worked on a range of projects including the £1.54 billion securitisation of British Land’s Broadgate office scheme in the City of London and the successful defence and subsequent property restructuring for Marks and Spencer plc.
Max was a semi-finalist in the first series of reality TV show The Apprentice, screened on BBC2 in 2005, in which contestants compete for a £100,000-a-year job as "apprentice" to British business magnate Sir Alan Sugar. He was a project manager three times during the show. He was on the winning team in eight out of a possible ten tasks (a feat since matched by Lucinda Ledgerwood). This included being on the winning team for six tasks in a row, making him the record holder for the highest number of successive wins on the programme until Series 7, when Helen Milligan exceeded this number. He was "fired" by Sugar in the interview round (episode 11). It is worth noting that the job he had left before appearing on the Apprentice had a higher salary than the eventual top prize offered on the show. In his autobiography, Lord Sugar states he fired Max from "The Apprentice" as he felt he was using the show as a route into a media career, which turned out to be an accurate prediction.
Since taking part on the show, Max has redefined his career. He now writes, broadcasts on radio and TV.
James presents Weekend Breakfast on LBC Radio. Every Saturday and Sunday from 7 - 10am.
A news based show, he covers the main stories of the day. Sometimes with guests and commentators, James's style is affable and conversational with an edge. Listeners get involved via telephone, email, text and tweeting and he's developed quite a following since joining the station in 2006.
Since May 2006 Max has presented a weekly business show on LBC Radio called "Business Matters". That show originally ran from 7pm to 9pm on Sunday evenings moving to 5 - 7pm in 2008. In March 2010 as part of the station's Spring lineup the show was lengthened and now ran from 4 - 7pm. On the 24th September 2011, the show came to the end of the series to allow James to move to become the station's Weekend Breakfast presenter. Incorporating business and property, the new show has a wider remit to cover the big news stories of the day.
He writes a weekly blog and has a presenter's page on the LBC 97.3 site.[3] The show covers a wide range of business topics and regularly has guests from the business and farming worlds. Previous guests have included Trevor Bayliss, Simon Woodroffe, Matt Hermer, Tim Campbell, Saira Khan, Margaret Mountford Theo Paphitis James Caan and Sir James Dyson. He has also reviewed the newspapers on LBC 97.3’s sister station, LBC News 1152. In July 2006 he co-hosted The Morning Report with Sue Mansfield.
In October 2007, Max started a 10-week run of a new Saturday show called The Finer Things in Life which aired, live, every Saturday night on the station between 5pm and 6pm.
In January 2008, Max presented the Early Breakfast Show from 5am to 7am on Fridays and 6am to 8am on Saturdays. He regularly covers for presenters such as James O'Brien, and James Whale. He has appeared as a pundit with Paul Ross and Jenny Eclair and was a regular caller on Iain Lee’s Good Evening.
James has made a number of podcasts for LBC's parent company, Global Radio. Free to download they have been popular in the business and current affairs chart. His Apprentice Series 5 podcast reached the top 5 in the itunes national chat. "Buy It Sell It Rent It" and "Cashpoint" can both be found along with his Apprentice podcast on iTunes and on his LBC page.[4]
James regularly reviews the newspapers on Sky News. He has become a regular. He is a current affairs commentator.
Since May 2011, James has written a monthly column for the magazine.
Max presented the weekday Business Update on TalkSPORT from April 2006 to May 2008. He has sat alongside a range of presenters, including Paul Breen Turner, Rodney Marsh, Micky Quinn, Adrian Durham and Ian Wright.
From January to March, Max presented his own Saturday evening show on the station and has regularly filled in for their non-sports presenters Ian Collins and George Galloway.
On the Overseas Property TV station, which broadcasts on channel 287 on Sky, Max has been a regular panellist on Ask The Property Experts and co-presents Property Pensions with Sian Jones, Profit from Property with Tris Payne and Property Boot Camp.
Max now presents the magazine's monthly podcast[5] having written a monthly lifestyle column entitled "Something for the Weekend" – a look at "what’s hot and what’s not" – for Property Week magazine, a publication that circulates throughout the commercial property industry.
Awards ceremonies, key note speeches, events, working sessions, discussions and seminars, James has presented and hosted many different corporate events.
Max has been involved with Shell Step, a work placement programme for students, and in 2007 hosted the final of the Shell Step Awards in London. He has spoken at numerous events across the country including the Business Startup Exhibition at London’s Olympia, where he hosted two interactive sessions for Lloyds TSB. He also presented the South London Business Awards[6] and the London Knowledge Transfer Awards alongside TV Presenter Jason Bradbury. He has hosted events for The Mayor of London, Olswang, Mortgage Solutions and The Negotiator Magazine.
Max is robust when it comes to defending banks and bankers. Vexed at the thought that the general populous blames the financial services sector wholly for the economic argument, he maintains that there is a wider social and economic problem. government, regulators, rating agencies and those who borrowed more than they could possibly pay back are his views. He cites many retail banks as the worst culprits for poor lending and often argues that little has been done to fix the problems and causes of the financial crash. In the past he justified Goldman Sachs awarding themselves bonus equal to half a million for each employee in the UK in 2009, while supporting a pay freeze for public sector workers such as nurses because, he argues, there is a difference between the public sector using tax payers' money and the private sector distributing profits.
Max presented an episode of Dispatches on Channel 4 in August 2008 entitled "How The Banks Never Lose", appeared on a celebrity special of the gameshow Weakest Link and took part in two episodes of The Morning After Show hosted by Simon Amstell and Olivia Lee. On BBC Breakfast, and on E4, where he provided a business report for each episode of the spin-off show, for Harvey Goldsmith’s Get Your Act Together, presented by News of the World TV columnist, Ian Hyland. He has also made some short films for BBC2’s Working Lunch programme including a feature on car maker Aston Martin. He regularly reviews the newspapers on Sky News and has featured on GMTV and Daybreak as their property expert.
He regularly appears as a pundit on Jeremy Vine's BBC Radio 2 Show. In June 2010 he defended garden grabbing (the practice whereby developers build in the back gardens of existing homes) and in July he argued against the AV voting reform as proposed by the coalition government.
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