Sam Atkinson

CEO Swap Commerce

Sam spent four years in M&A at Irish law firm Arthur Cox before joining McKinsey & Company. At McKinsey, Sam worked primarily with large retailers on their operations, including projects for LVMH and Dr Martens. After McKinsey, Sam joined Neo-Bank for e-commerce, and Juni as Head of Strategy. His time at Juni sparked the idea for Swap, where he realized the many challenges facing retailers, especially in ecommerce. Since launching Swap in November of 2022, Sam has worked tirelessly to make commerce more open and merchant-controlled for 600+ brands worldwide.

Sam was born and raised in the U.K. all his life, growing up a few hours outside London. His career started with four years working in M&A law at Arthur Cox. After Arthur Cox, Sam did his MBA at HEC Paris –– in that time, he started his first business venture, SloGoods. A luxury hand-made home goods retailer, SloGoods sourced from all over the world and sold globally, too. This gave Sam first hand experience in what it takes to import from and sell to the world –– needless to say, it was a challenging business model. Despite reaching critical acclaim in the U.K. with features in Harper’s Bazaar and British Vogue, Sam decided to sunset the business to join McKinsey after his MBA.

Sam furthered his interest in ecommerce at McKinsey, working on projects for LVMH and Dr. Martens. He then put his SloGoods and McKinsey experience to practice with ecommerce businesses at Juni as Head of Strategy. There, Sam learned all the interworkings of how ecommerce businesses truly operate at Juni, a Neo-bank start-up for ecommerce businesses. It’s there where he built rapport with the co-founder of Juni, Jonathan Sanders, who has been a mentor to Sam and later introduced him to Dinika at Cherry Ventures, leading to Swap’s Series A. While he did not start Swap until near the end of his tenure at Juni, the idea was sparked by his time there, where he realized the many challenges facing retailers, especially in ecommerce. Since founding Swap in 2022, Sam has worked tirelessly to improve operations for retailers in the U.K. and hundreds of brands worldwide.