Mark Shipman

Mark Shipman is a highly successful investor and has made a personal fortune from backing his own judgment with his own money.

He was born in England in 1962 and following an uninspiring education, he left school at 16 with minimal qualifications to join the ranks of the unemployed. Shortly before his seventeenth birthday, he obtained a job working in the post room of an Australian bank in the City of London and within a few months he was transferred to the accounts department.

Following a series of promotions, Shipman's career path changed when he was offered a position in the dealing room where he specialised in the trading of futures contracts and in the research, development and application of proprietary trading systems.

In 1990, having borrowed money from friends and family, Mark left the City to establish his own hedge fund management company, the first to seek independent regulation in the United Kingdom.

The following year he achieved personal success by winning the World Professional Futures Trading Championship and by 1993, he was considered one of the leading money managers in the world (source: Futures & Options World).

Shipman retired from fund management in 1996 at the age of 33 to concentrate on managing his own money and to pursue a number of hobbies and interests.

He is also the author of two international best-sellers, “The Next Big Investment Boom” (published in 2006) and "Big Money, Little Effort" (published in 2008).