Check out my interview with Jay Liebenguth over at Fresh Octane:

You and I fret over how to balance our investment dollars in a SEP or an IRA. Meanwhile, Robert P. Smith has his bags packed for Damascus, Syria to measure that country’s investment potential. That’s why he is portrayed as the “Indiana Jones” of international finance.

“Give me a country that is at war because the last President has been shot and I’ll figure out something to do to make money,” says Smith who is author of RICHES AMONG THE RUINS—Adventures in the Dark Corners of the Global Economy.

In this new book, Smith recounts his experiences risking not only his money, but his life, in war zones, dictatorships, and crime-ridden capitals in countries like El Salvador, Nigeria, Turkey, Russia and Iraq.

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As an alumnus of Bowdoin, I’ve worked with them a few times and spoken about my work and writing. Here’s a nice profile they ran in their Fall 2009 magazine.

Bowdoin: Is it still necessary for investors like yourself to visit these countries like you did?

Smith: Let me compare it to the CIA gathering intelligence. They’re big on the technical stuff, the satellites and intercepting code and phone messages. But, where they’ve always fallen on the ground is their human intelligence, human intel. I believe that you have to be on the ground speaking to as many people as possible, asking the embarrassing questions to government officials and executives as to where the country is going, what they’re doing, what the economic plan is. It’s similar to applying for admission into Bowdoin, to get an idea of what the College is all about. You can read all the catalogs, listen to all the videos and the promo material that they send out, but unless you are on campus getting a feel and talking to some of the students and professors, you really don’t have an idea of what Bowdoin is all about.