Stephen J. R. Smith

Stephen J. R. Smith is a Canadian Businessman who serves as the Executive Chairman and co-founder of First National Financial Corporation. As of November 2023, his net worth was estimated as $3.4 billion.

Smith graduated with a degree of Electrical Engineering from Queen's University in 1972 and went on to get a Master's of Science in economics from the London School of Economics.

In 1988, he co-founded First National Financial Corporation, the largest non-bank lender of mortgages in Canada. As of 2015, the company had over $90 billion of mortgage loans under administration.

Smith has supported post-secondary education through large donations on several occasions. On October 1, 2015, his donation of $50 million to Queen's University at Kingston was announced, after which Queen's business school was renamed to Smith School of Business in his honor. On November 2, 2023, his $100 million donation to Queen's was announced, and Queen's engineering department was renamed to the Stephen J. R. Smith Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science.