Howard Smith is a managing director at First Analysis coordinating investment and research in broadband enabled businesses. He specializes in business models based on information technology. At First Analysis, he’s built several information technology research franchises, including computer telephony, call center products, computer security, Internet infrastructure, and wide-area-wireless M2M. His work has been cited for excellence by the Wall Street Journal and other publications. He’s provided strategic advice to numerous technology companies in capital raising and buy- and sell-side M&A transactions, and as a board member. Prior to joining First Analysis in 1994, he was a senior tax consultant with Arthur Andersen & Co. He earned an MBA from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a certified public accountant.Founded in 1981, Chicago-based First Analysis has a 30-year record of serving emerging growth companies, established industry leaders, and institutional investors in its focused areas of domain expertise, both through its private growth-equity activities and through First Analysis Securities Corp. (FASC), which provides investment banking services and institutional equity research. FASC is a FINRA-registered broker-dealer and member SIPC.