Learning to lead: Breaking barriers in the City

Sam Smith qualified as an accountant with KPMG before joining a private client stockbroker, J M Finn, in 1998 where she ran the small-cap corporate advisory and broking division. In 2007, she led a management buyout to create finnCap and in 2018 bought mergers and acquisitions adviser Cavendish Corporate Finance, before floating on London’s AIM sub-market for small and medium-sized companies.

The first female chief executive of a City stockbroker, Smith stepped down in 2022. She now holds a series of non-executive directorships and helps scale-ups to grow as a strategic adviser to Excelerator Partners and a patron of The Entrepreneurs Network. Smith still holds 5 per cent of finnCap, which has merged with Cenkos Securities to operate under the Cavendish brand.

Learning

“When I took over as CEO, I went round to meet other competitor CEOs and, obviously, they were all men. You start conforming because you have no other female role models. I found that I wanted to do it my way, based on how to make a team feel like they belong and as if they really matter. Then they can be much more productive, much happier and drive your growth.

“That took a lot of confidence, to do it in my own style, but I think it was the reason we grew in a sector that was shrinking. You could see first-hand that the different style of leadership was leading us to growth in a market that wasn’t moving forward.”

Being open

“Being open and approachable and relatable – the human touch element – is really important. That style is much more suited to women and also to those leaders from different backgrounds who may have different skills.”

Listening

“As the CEO, you are the glue that keeps everything together, you are the visionary. Ideas come from everywhere, though. I’ve got some of my best ideas from lots of places, from my reception team all the way through to very senior people in the business.”

Communicating

“Wanting to put the time into internal culture and communications and how you talk to people absolutely matters.”

Diversity

“People always ask me about being a woman leader. Well, I didn’t find being a woman any different, it was probably a positive because I could do it very differently to the guys. What I did find difficult and made me feel much more excluded was coming from a state school background, because everyone in the City was from private school.”

Coaching

“Geeta Sidhu-Robb has been brilliant. She specialises in coaching senior women, and, of all my coaches, has been the most instrumental, particularly when I had my daughter. In those first couple of years, I felt I was going to have to sell the business, I just couldn’t do it. She helped me get through that period.”

Mentors

“The best mentor conversation I had was with Antony Jenkins, who used to be CEO of Barclays. I met him on a CEO retreat. He’d just left Barclays and made me see the blocker to my growth, which was my own view of where I thought I could take the business.

“When people ask, ‘With limitless time and money, could you get to this size?’ you think, of course I could, and that opens the growth window.

“That was a groundbreaking change because we were stuck at about £17m turnover. That conversation shifted my mindset so I could see the acquisition of Cavendish, look at the IPO and consider growth in additional services.

“Growth is all about a new product, a new service, a new geography. That’s really it, apart from a new sector. There are only four ways to do it.”

Other inspirations

“Jon Moulton, my chairman, was brilliant and Rosaleen Blair of Alexander Mann Solutions really helped me see the wood from the trees.”

You can read another Learning to Lead story with Romi Savova, co-founder and CEO of PensionBee here and Clare Elford, the chief executive of Clue Software here.