Brooke Roberts is a co-founder of Sharesies, the Wellington, New Zealand, investing app that lets people buy shares from small amounts. She leads the company with Leighton Roberts and Sonya Williams, who share the title Co-founder, Director, and 3EO. Read our review of Sharesies.
Finance Studies at Massey University
She began as a marketing assistant and moved into finance, product, and marketing roles at AJ Park, Kiwibank, and Xero, working full time while studying part time. She finished a Master of Finance with Distinction at Massey University in 2013, and Massey later gave her its Distinguished Young Alumni Award. Starting her studies just after the 2007 to 2008 financial crisis taught her "heaps about the human side of investing," she said.
Seven Founders and a Small Minimum
In 2017 she started Sharesies in a group of seven founders that included Leighton Roberts, Sonya Williams, Ben Crotty, Martyn Smith, and Richard Clark. Sonya Williams had the first idea, wishing she could invest $50 and have it mean something, Roberts told RNZ.
"We wanted to give someone with five dollars the same investment opportunities as someone with $500,000," she told Massey. Sharesies now has more than 1 million investors in New Zealand and Australia.
Changing Who Invests
"When we first started, it was males over 60 living in Auckland who were the majority of shareholders. And we're changing that," she told RNZ. She blames the system more than investors for low participation: "It's actually the system's fault. There's been structural issues within finance that have made it less accessible to people."
