Graham Smale is passionate about creativity, creative problem-solving, innovation, design thinking and how all of these tools and frameworks can be used to build better and more sustainable businesses. His background as an engineer led him into a 36 -year career in the financial markets but he has now made a fundamental career shift to pursue his passions, broadly define as "business coaching", where he works with clients to become more innovative and build better businesses using a range of tools, frameworks and processes. With the COVID-19 outbreak, Graham Smale is now offering these capabilities online through virtual workshops.

Graham Smale is also a life, team and leadership coach, having recently completed his Ontological Coaching program. 

Graham Smale was previously the Director of Market Development & Innovation and Director of Bonds & Financial Derivatives at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. He has 27 years of experience in financial markets, in a variety of capacities with special emphasis on the trading, structuring, and risk management of bonds, convertibles, interest rate products, and derivatives.

Prior to working at JSE, Graham Smale was a founding shareholder of Decillion Limited, a niche financial services company listed on the JSE. The firm was founded in 1996 and specialized in the proprietary trading of fixed income products and derivatives as well as managing a suite of hedge funds. After that role he formed Gordian Risk Advisors, a risk strategy and consulting firm, and consulted to the Bond Exchange of South Africa in various roles, latterly on the creation of a remote class of membership of the exchange and the establishment of an interest rate futures and options market.

Graham Smale holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Natal and has a Master in Finance from the University of Cape Town. In his free time, I enjoy wine-tasting, food, fly-fishing and tying, squash, technology, innovation and business strategy, and audiobooks.

Connect with Graham Smale on LinkedIn.

See his work at innoFindo and Venture Designers