The ex-head of Deutsche Bank in America wants you in the wild

It's been 12 months. In March 2024, James Davies, the former head of Deutsche Bank Securities and the head of Deutsche's corporate and investment bank in the Americas, left the German bank after nearly 24 years. Davies didn't go to another bank; he didn't join a hedge fund. He went into the American bush. And now he wants other people to join him there.

Get Morning Coffee ☕ in your inbox. Sign up here.

"I'm really called to this," says Davies. "I'm not f*cking about here. I have a real sense of mission."

Davies isn't living in a tent - he has a 2,000 square foot house with 85 acres called The Thyme in Western Massachusetts, but he's immersed himself in nature and describes himself as a hippy. "I sudden realised that there was a huge void in my life and that I needed to fill it," he says. "It was always there, nagging at the back of my head and when I left Deutsche Bank, it was like pouring petrol on it." 

Davies joined Deutsche in 1999 after a brief five year career in law. He was a rising star in London and unexpectedly moved to run America for the bank in 2018. When he left in 2024, colleagues were sad to see him go and predicted he'd find a new job easily. Davies initially thought he'd move back into financial services, but then he found The Thyme, and everything changed.  "I was sat in a box in front of a computer every day, but now I'm up at 5.30am every day, working on the land and running the house," he says.

The Thyme includes Sages Ravine on the Appalachian Trail, described as a "beautiful section of forest" running to a river and waterfalls. Davies runs "wellness and spirituality retreats" from his new home. "We've already hosted 10 events and had 500 people," he says. They've come for forest walks, sound meditation, and men's breathwork classes. "We'll go for a big walk in the morning and then come back and eat together before a sweat lodge and a sound ceremony where we sit in the dark in silent contemplation." 

Anyone can go to the Thyme - Davies wants it to become a centre for spiritual renewal. "The neoliberal western education system pushes us so far down a path of rationality that we end up forgetting what it means to be human," he says. He's especially interested in inviting people from banking backgrounds into his new world. "I'm really interested in the intersection between spirituality and finance. - If you bring your executive committee here, I will run a weekend for free." 

One exco has already been to the Thyme, but Davies doesn't say which. He says people's responses range from, "It's been an amazing bonding experience" to "It's been transformative and has changed my perspective on everything.'"

"It's nature," he says.

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, Whatsapp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher. Click here to fill in our anonymous form, or email editortips@efinancialcareers.com. Signal also available.

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)