After completing a PhD in Chemistry at Imperial College, David returned to his hometown in Hong Kong to hone his business skills. When he returned to the UK, via Singapore, he did a stint at Hilton Group's Racing Division, where he picked up a tip or two about the world of horse racing.

David, married with two children, has now settled down to a more sedate life, writing investment content for the Fool and producing our regular podcasts. For his sins he is also the company's media personality and can often be heard sparring with the likes of Danny Baker and Jon Gaunt on BBC Radio London.

After managing to scrape just two A-Levels together at college, Maynard worked for a year as a Poll Tax clerk and then for six years at the local authority's IT department in the murky world of ICL mainframes and COBOL programming. He relocated to Kent to join a financial services firm's IT department and there discovered the joys of stock market investing.

After reading every investment book ever written and writing a couple of articles for Analyst magazine he joined the Fool in 1999. He ran the Fool's Qualiport portfolio for many years and is now the lead analyst for Champion Shares, our share picking newsletter. His hobbies include keeping his wife in a good mood, fighting for space on trains and sleeping.

After studying for a degree in philosophy and politics at Staffordshire University, Jane somehow fell into a completely unrelated job in financial services at Virgin Direct. A move to the financial publication, Moneyfacts, followed, where she spent three years working as a features writer specialising in pension and investments.

Jane then had a brief stint as a paraplanner at a financial adviser firm, where she worked as hard to prepare financial plans for individuals as Neil Faulkner did as a paralegal. Probably harder, she argues smugly. And for less money. But having decided paraplanning wasn’t for her after all, she is now enjoying working as a personal finance writer at The Fool.

During her varied financial career, Jane has also passed the Certificate in Financial Planning (CertPFS.)

Jane has recently moved to London where she spends most of her time either getting lost or taking ridiculously short tube journeys to avoid doing so.

Obsessed with reading and writing from birth, Laura studied English & Related Literature at the University of York. When she graduated in 2003 – penniless, in debt and depressed that her years of daytime drinking were over – Laura felt that becoming a secondary school teacher was a good idea.

Upon realising that Dead Poets Society is not an accurate portrayal of the day-to-day realities of the profession (nor is C4’s Teachers for that matter), she pursued an MA in Fashion Journalism. Upon realising that The Devil Wears Prada is not an accurate portrayal of life in the fashion industry, Laura re-considered her options.

Laura had developed a strong interest in personal finance since her time at university, so she jumped at the opportunity to join The Fool.

She is pleased that working at The Motley Fool is adequately similar to life as presented by 'Press Gang.'

Jon originally started a degree in biotechnology, but became disillusioned with a placement making toothpaste, so dropped out. Eventually, he picked up a degree in Cultural Studies, followed a few years later by a Masters degree in IT, after which he spent 8 years working at a university, lecturing in computing and doing research into web search engine technology, followed by nearly four years developing robotic laboratory automation systems for the pharmaceutical industry.

Jon's other previous jobs have included - wine merchant, community worker, record shop assistant, croupier, double-glazing salesman, bar tender, market researcher, actor and fire-eater. (One of those is a lie - and it's not 'fire-eater'.)

Jon now works in the Community department of the Fool, dealing with customer service enquiries and performing 'conflict resolution duties' on the discussion boards. In his spare time he keeps several tarantulas, reads voraciously, listens to a frighteningly eclectic range of music, and cooks a great deal of curry.