James McGrigor (45). MA Hons, Oxford University (1981-1984).

James founded The McGrigor Corporation in early 2002, as a combination of his two careers in strategy consulting and healthcare ventures.
He started work at Bain and Co, gaining experience from the London, Boston and Johannesburg offices. During his 6 years he was one of the first consultants to achieve a ‘Bain’ MBA involving finance, marketing, strategy and other courses at London Business School and Insead.

In 1990 he left to form his first health venture, Carol Block Europe limited. Over 2 years this helped to pioneer the entry of laser-based health and beauty treatments into Europe from the US, before being subsumed back into a bigger venture.
For the next 10 years, James returned to international strategy consulting with a start-up corporate development boutique, Arkwright. Until 2000, James led and built up the London office with a client base of leading international financial services companies, mostly in health and life insurance, such as Cigna Corporation, AIG, BUPA and Mellon. He lead projects in the US, Brazil, Germany, UK and Hong Kong. He became increasingly involved in new health ventures eg NHS Direct in the UK, and built a useful network of international health and wealth experts.
When Arkwright was sold to Halogen, an internet solutions company, James fulfilled a 2 year lock-in, heading the European Global Financial Services team to hit record sales of $25m and looking at how the internet could drive the growth of health and wealth.

He lives with his wife, Carella and 3 sons, close to London, and works both from home and his city office. Carella works with James as company secretary having had a career in medical and care charities.

 Mikael Garandeau (39). DEA , Agrégation, Ecole Normale Supérieure (1990-1994).

Mikael has been working in strategy consulting for five years, within Arkwright-Halogen and then The McGrigor Corporation. He is also managing director of The Maghreb Financial Services Consultancy (MFSC), a sister company of TMC providing financial services companies with fronting arrangements and growth acceleration into North Africa.

Along with James, Mikael has helped several global insurance companies to enter new regions / new segments, with a strong focus on emerging markets. He has also led the effort in building the network of TMC associates throughout the world, and started Maghreb Financial Services Consultancy.

Prior to being a strategy consultant, Mikael was a researcher in political theory at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, and held fellowships at the University of Oxford, and then Harvard University. Author of numerous books and articles on liberalism during the 1990s, he was also a regular contributor to The Economist book section. In parallel with his academic career, Mikael also spent two years within the French Foreign Office, where he became familiar with international relations issues, one of his main areas of interests.

Mikael is currently based in London, UK, and Rabat, Morocco.