The Team
A small, senior team — no junior analysts running client relationships, no offshore call centres, no automated advice engines.
Meet the TeamWhitaker & Sterling has never sought to grow headcount for its own sake. The team currently comprises seven professionals: three senior advisors, two analysts dedicated to stress-testing and scenario modelling, one legal liaison with a background in cross-border succession law, and one client services coordinator. Each senior advisor carries a maximum of thirty active client relationships. This ceiling is not arbitrary — it reflects the time required to genuinely understand each client's situation, attend quarterly reviews with full preparation, and respond to market events with considered rather than reactive adjustments. If we cannot give a new client the attention the model demands, we do not take them on.
James built the firm's risk-management framework after fifteen years in institutional fixed income at banks in London and Vienna. He holds a CFA charter and a postgraduate qualification in financial law from the University of Vienna. His focus is on downside boundary methodology and sovereign credit risk assessment for EU-domiciled portfolios.
Mirela joined in 2014 after nine years at a Bucharest private bank managing ultra-high-net-worth client portfolios. She specialises in insurance wrapper structuring and Romanian succession law interface, and holds an EFPA certificate alongside a law degree from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca.
Sebastian brings a background in actuarial science — six years with a Vienna-based reinsurer — before transitioning to client advisory. His expertise covers liquidity stress scenarios, longevity risk in retirement decumulation, and the intersection of insurance mathematics with personal balance sheet management.
Behind every client recommendation sits a documented analysis produced by our two-person research and modelling team. Before a new instrument or structure type is recommended to any client, the analysts produce a stress-test report covering at least three adverse scenarios: a sharp equity drawdown, an interest rate spike, and a liquidity freeze analogous to March 2020. No recommendation advances without a written sign-off from two senior advisors. Our legal liaison, Raluca Dima — a qualified Romanian barrister with additional training in Luxembourg trust and insurance law — reviews every succession-related recommendation before it is finalised. This governance structure means that what reaches you has already passed through multiple independent reviews.
“What I value most about this team is that I always speak directly with James or Mirela — never with someone who needs to go away and check. They know my file cold. When markets turned volatile in late 2022, Mirela called me before I even had a chance to worry, with a clear explanation of why our structure was holding and what, if anything, needed adjusting. That directness is worth a great deal.”
Radu Ionescu, Cluj-Napoca
Every Whitaker & Sterling client is assigned a named senior advisor as their primary point of contact — no exceptions.
Start a ConversationThe firm holds authorisation from Romania's Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF) as a registered investment intermediary. All senior advisors carry individual licences and complete a minimum of thirty hours of continuing professional development annually.
No advisor at Whitaker & Sterling receives commission, trailer fee, or any payment from a product provider. Remuneration is entirely client-funded, which removes the structural conflict of interest that compromises product-linked advisory relationships.
Every recommendation, every portfolio change, and every rationale is documented in writing and held on file for a minimum of ten years. Clients receive a copy of their decision log at each quarterly review and may request it at any time.