Senior Associate Dean and Management Professor
Rice University
Professor Brent Smith, Ph.D. is an award-winning behavioral scientist and currently serves as the Senior Associate Dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. Prior to his current academic appointments, he was a member of the faculty at London Business School and Cornell University where he taught in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the Johnson Graduate School of Management.
He has also taught for shorter periods at the University of California at Berkeley, Oxford University, the Danish Technical University, INSEAD, and the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad and has conducted executive programs around the world for companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, IBM, HSBC, Credit Suisse, Barclays, KPMG, ExxonMobil, BP, ADCO, Lufthansa, Goldman Sachs, Roche, Genentech, DeBeers, Schneider Electric, Microsoft, Qualcomm, El Paso Energy, Veritas, Dynegy, ONGC, CGG Inc., Marathon Oil, Citibank, RedBull, Phillip Morris International, National Oilwel lVarco, Swedbank, Ulster Bank, RBS, Saudi Aramco, Eaton Corporation, INEOS, Motiva, ConocoPhillips, and TOTAL. Professor Smith has delivered keynote speeches at technology and energy trade conferences and for the global Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and Executive Leadership Council (ELC). His teaching interests focus primarily on leadership and management development. Dr. Smith’s executive programs include Leading and Managing Enterprise Change, Talent Management, Development and Coaching, Strategic Human Resources Management, and Leading and Managing High Performance Teams. Dr. Smith has served as leadership faculty in the corporate universities of TOTAL, Lufthansa, Tenaris, National Oilwell Varco, Eaton Corporation, and Cooper Industries.
Dr. Smith has a special interest in non-profit healthcare, academic, and educational institutions. He co-developed Rice University’s Graduate Certificate in Healthcare Management (GCHM). The GCHM has educated over 500 physician executives. Dr. Smith has created custom programming or consulted with MD Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, and, while in the UK, the National Health Se
rvice. He currently serves on the advisory board for the Leadership Institute at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Dr. Smith co-developed the non-degree programming for Rice’s award-winning Educational Entrepreneurship Program (REEP) dedicated to training primary and secondary school administrators to be more holistic leaders. Additionally, he has worked extensively with the Houston Independent School District, the eighth largest public school district in the country, and advised HISD’s Board of Trustees, Superintendent, and Cabinet. Through his programs, Dr. Smith has trained over 200 HISD administrators. Dr. Smith created a unique program to train HISD’s School Support Officers and Chiefs to be effective coaches and consultants. In addition to his work with public schools and REEP, Dr. Smith helped develop leadership programs for KIPP, IDEA, and Yes Prep.
Dr. Smith has twice received the Scholarly Achievement Award from the Academy of Management and the Outstanding Publication in Organizational Behavior Award for his research on personality, organizational culture, and employee attitudes. His research has been published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Human Performance, Journal of Business Ethics, and Leadership Quarterly. He is a co-editor of the book Personality and Organizations, and The People make the Place. Dr. Smith serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Business and Psychology.
Dr. Smith is a founding partner of calabr, a firm specializing in enhancing organizational effectiveness through research-grounded interventions in the areas of executive team development, acquisition integration, enterprise change, and organizational alignment. Dr. Smith has served as an executive coach for almost 20 years. His clients have included senior executives in Healthcare, Energy, Hospitality, Financial Services, Technology, Agricultural, and Consumer Products companies.