Sam Smith: How we pulled through the credit crunch

The financial crisis and the falling number of Aim-listed companies did not put Sam Smith making a success of her start-up business.

751-sam-smith-634

Sam Smith: "Trust your judgment" and "be positive"

Imagine that you've just invested your life savings to buy out your firm from its parent company and then the economy you operate in starts to implode. That's what happened to Sam Smith after she and her colleagues struck out on their own, just two weeks before the start of the global financial crisis.After graduating from Bristol and qualifying as an accountant at KPMG, Smith (now 41) was headhunted by stockbrokers JM Finn in 1998 to setup a corporate brokerage division.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri