Sam Smith (businesswoman)

Last updated

Sam Smith (born 22 May 1974) is a British businesswoman and financier. [1] She is the founder and chief executive of the corporate advisor and brokerage firm FinnCap, the largest broker for companies listed on London's growth stock market AIM and a top five broker for the London Stock Exchange. [2] Smith is the first female chief executive of a City stockbroking firm. [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Smith was born and raised in Selsey, West Sussex, and attended Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School in Kent. [4] She studied Economics and Accounting at the University of Bristol, graduating with a BSc in 1995. [5]

Career

After graduating, Smith joined KPMG, where she qualified as a Chartered Accountant. [4] In 1998 she joined investment manager JM Finn to establish its corporate advisory and brokerage division. [6]

In 2007, Smith established FinnCap and became chief executive following a 50% buyout of JM Finn Capital Markets, making Smith the only female chief executive of a City broking firm. The British venture capitalist Jon Moulton became chairman of the firm in January 2010. [7]

The buyout was completed in April 2010 when the outstanding 50% of the company was acquired from JM Finn. [8] FinnCap is now 95% employee-owned and offers new employees low-interest, long-dated loans to purchase shares. [9]

The firm is now the largest broker for companies listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM growth market, with over 120 clients. It advised companies on raising a total of £363 million in the financial year ending 30 April 2017. [10]

Smith was announced as a finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in April 2017. [11]

Other activities

Smith is a supporter of women in business and finance; Finncap established a female founders forum in March 2017, aiming to enable more female CEOs to scale up using growth capital. [9]

She is a former winner of the Women of the Future Award for Business, [12] and is a patron for the Modern Muse project, a not-for-profit social enterprise designed to inspire and engage the next generation of female business leaders and entrepreneurs. [13]

Related Research Articles

An investment bank is a financial services company or corporate division that engages in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated with corporate finance, such a bank might assist in raising financial capital by underwriting or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of securities. An investment bank may also assist companies involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and provide ancillary services such as market making, trading of derivatives and equity securities, and FICC services. Most investment banks maintain prime brokerage and asset management departments in conjunction with their investment research businesses. As an industry, it is broken up into the Bulge Bracket, Middle Market, and boutique market.

Financial services Economic service provided by the finance industry

Financial services are the economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of businesses that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit-card companies, insurance companies, accountancy companies, consumer-finance companies, stock brokerages, investment funds, individual asset managers, and some government-sponsored enterprises.

Garret Graham Wellesley, 8th Earl of Cowley, styled Viscount Dangan from 1975 to 2016, is a British hereditary peer and businessman. Previously an entrepreneur in derivatives and foreign exchange trading, he is the founder and CEO of UK alternative lender Wellesley & Co.

Renaissance Capital (Russian company)

Renaissance Capital is an emerging and frontier markets focused investment bank founded in 1995 in Russia. The firm has offices in Moscow, London, New York, Lagos, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Cairo and Nicosia.

TP ICAP UK financial services firm

TP ICAP Group plc is a financial services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Its stock is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc., a Stifel Company, is an investment banking firm headquartered in New York City, specializing exclusively in the financial services sector. KBW's primary business lines include research, corporate finance, equity sales and trading, equity capital markets, debt capital markets, and asset management.

Newmark Group Inc. is a commercial real estate advisory and services firm headquartered in New York, New York. It operates as Newmark and is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol "NMRK".

Lincoln International Multinational financial services company

Lincoln International LLC is a multinational independent investment bank and financial services company specializing in advisory services and financings on middle market transactions. The firm works with publicly traded and privately owned companies, financial sponsors, and lenders. The firm provides advisory services including mergers & acquisitions, capital advisory consisting of growth equity, debt and restructuring advisory, valuations and opinions, private funds advisory and joint ventures & partnering. The firm completed more than 385 advisory assignments globally in 2021, as well as over 10,000 debt and equity valuations.

FXCM, also known as Forex Capital Markets, is a retail foreign exchange broker for trading on the foreign exchange market. FXCM allows people to speculate on the foreign exchange market and provides trading in contract for difference (CFDs) on major indices and commodities such as gold and crude oil. It is based in London.

Tucker Anthony was an independent investment banking and brokerage firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. In 2001, the firm was acquired by Royal Bank of Canada and was merged with the bank's Dain Rauscher Wessels subsidiary to create RBC Dain Rauscher.

Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission

The Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission, better known as CySEC, is the financial regulatory agency of Cyprus. As an EU member state, CySEC's financial regulations and operations comply with the European MiFID financial harmonization law.

Dominick & Dickerman American financial services company

Dominick and Dickerman is an investment and merchant banking firm, located in New York City. From 1899 through to 2015, the firm was known as Dominick and Dominick. Following the sale of the wealth management business, the firm reverted to its original name, Dominick and Dickerman.

Shahrzad Rafati Iranian Canadian entrepreneur

Shahrzad Rafati is the founder and CEO of BroadbandTV Corp, a digital media and technology company that drives monetization for content creators. Shahrzad is credited with pioneering both the technology and business model that made peace between big entertainment entities like the NBA and their fans who were uploading premium content to video sites like YouTube.

BGC Partners American financial services company

BGC Partners is an American global financial services company based in New York City. Originally formed as part of the larger Cantor Fitzgerald organization, BGC Partners became its own entity in 2004.

FinnCap British investment bank

finnCap Group, comprising finnCap Capital Markets and finnCap Cavendish, is a British investment bank, financial services firm, and a corporate and institutional stockbroker, based in London. It provides strategic advisory and capital raising services, including: investment banking, equities research, institutional sales and trading, and market making.

Sharekhan is the 5th largest retail brokerage full-service brokerage firm and the 8th largest stock broker in India with 676631 customers. Sharekhan is one of the pioneers of online trading in India. It offers a broad range of financial products and services including securities brokerage, mutual fund distribution, loan against shares, ESOP financing, IPO financing and wealth management.

Interactive Brokers American financial services firm

Interactive Brokers LLC (IB) is an American multinational brokerage firm. It operates the largest electronic trading platform in the U.S. by number of daily average revenue trades. The company brokers stocks, options, futures, EFPs, futures options, forex, bonds, and funds.

Focus Financial Partners, LLC is an investor in independent, fiduciary wealth management firms, incorporated in 2004 by Ruediger (Rudy) Adolf, Rajini Kodialam and Leonard (Lenny) Chang.

"'Norma Hason Nahmias Yaeger'" is an entrepreneur, stockbroker, business pioneer, and published author. In 1962, she became the first woman to enroll in Hornblower & Weeks, Inc. training program for stockbrokers. She is the first woman who demanded and got the right to join her male trainees on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The Stock Exchange did not previously allow women to set foot on its floor. Norma Nahmias was the only woman invited to Hornblower & Weeks' Management Advisory Board. She registered with the Liquidity Fund with the SEC; it was the first Money Market Mutual Fund in California. Norma Yaeger registered and opened a full-service stock brokerage firm, Yaeger Securities, Inc., in 1981. When the Affirmative Action Bill AB-1933 passed in 1989, she started a second brokerage firm, Yaeger Capital Markets, which she opened in 1991. Her numerous licenses include the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the National Association of Security Dealers (NASD), the Chicago Board of Options, and the Commodity Exchange. She spends a lot of her time giving lectures to empower and encourage women. Breaking Down the Walls, the memoir of her years as a Wall Street and business pioneer is her first book, published in 2014.

Vinodka "Vin" Murria OBE is a British businesswoman and founder of Advanced Computer Software plc where she served as CEO until it was acquired in 2015. She works as an investor with HgCapital.

References

  1. ↑ Ralph, Alex. "Being a woman at the top isn't child's play, but imagine doing it with a child".
  2. ↑ "London's stockbrokers have had a trading 'bloodbath' post-Brexit, according to finnCap's CEO".
  3. ↑ Parkinson, Gary. "Sam Smith of finnCapp: breaking down the door to the men's club".
  4. 1 2 Times, The Sunday. "Leading edge: Sam Smith".
  5. ↑ "Business Interview: Sam Smith, finnCap".
  6. ↑ "Sam Smith: How we pulled through the credit crunch - MoneyWeek". 20 July 2015.
  7. ↑ Terazono, Emiko (19 January 2010). "Moulton lands FinnCap chair" – via Financial Times.
  8. ↑ "Moulton and staff complete FinnCap buy-out". Financial Times.
  9. 1 2 Green, Harriet (14 March 2017). "FinnCap's Sam Smith on IPOs, MBOs and the value of skin in the game".
  10. ↑ Chopra, Shruti Tripathi (24 May 2017). "IPO bonanza: Appetite for stock market debuts in London to remain strong".
  11. ↑ "EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2017 UK finalists announced". www.ey.com.
  12. ↑ "2009 - Women of the Future Awards". Women of the Future Awards.
  13. ↑ "Modern Muse". Modern Muse.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.