The world’s greatest investors: George Ross-Goobey

George Ross-Goobey was appointed the first in-house manager of Imperial Tobacco’s pension fund.

George Ross-Goobey was born in Poplar, east London, in1911, the third son of a shopkeeper and Methodist lay-preacher. He attended Christ's Hospital School, Sussex, on a scholarship, but his family could not afford to send him to university.In 1928, he joined British Equitable Assurance as an actuarial trainee. He worked for various insurers, became a fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 1941, and in 1947, was appointed the first in-house manager of Imperial Tobacco's pension fund. He was a member of the Association of Superannuation & Pension Funds (ASPF now the National Association of Pension Funds) and, in 1972, was made its president. He died in 1999.

What was his strategy?

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Ben Judge

Ben studied modern languages at London University's Queen Mary College. After dabbling unhappily in local government finance for a while, he went to work for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh. The launch of the paper's website, scotsman.com, in the early years of the dotcom craze, saw Ben move online to manage the Business and Motors channels before becoming deputy editor with responsibility for all aspects of online production for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News websites, along with the papers' Edinburgh Festivals website.

Ben joined MoneyWeek as website editor in 2008, just as the Great Financial Crisis was brewing. He has written extensively for the website and magazine, with a particular emphasis on alternative finance and fintech, including blockchain and bitcoin. 

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