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Sam Smith

EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ 2024 Judge
Founder, finnCap, United Kingdom

Sam is an advocate of entrepreneurship and inclusion in the UK.

Photographic portrait of Sam Smith

As the first female chief executive of a London stock brokerage, Sam Smith has worked on more than 200 transactions, IPOs and secondary fund raisings. She is the former CEO of financial services group finnCap (now Cavendish Financial), which she founded in 1998 as a division within JM Finn & Co. She later led the management buyout of finnCap in 2007, followed by an IPO in 2018.

Sam is the best-selling author of The Secret Sauce, and she champions inclusion and entrepreneurship for the underrepresented, including female-led businesses. She serves as a non-executive director on boards that prioritize inclusive culture, is a member of the Government Taskforce on Women-Led High Growth Enterprises, and serves on the advisory board for everywoman.

Passionate about empowering young people, she spearheads a campaign to integrate entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial thinking into school curriculums.

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