Herbert C. Smith
Chairman & CEO
Herbert C. Smith, Ph.D. has dedicated his career to helping people, as an educator, executive recruiter, and executive coach.
As founder and Chairman of HC Smith Ltd, Dr. Smith developed a unique, behaviorally-anchored process to identify, evaluate and present talented professionals to clients across a spectrum of for-profit, nonprofit, government and educational institutions. He is known for his ability to find, evaluate and present highly-qualified men and women of color for the professional, management and executive ranks. Since founding HC Smith Ltd in 1985, Dr. Smith has recruited mid to senior-level managers and executive leaders for private, nonprofit, government and educational organizations. Assignments cover all disciplines from chief executive leadership to senior leaders in human resources, engineering, quality and safety, operations, logistics, science and technology, compliance and intellectual property.
Regarded as an expert on leadership, organizational effectiveness, and change management, Dr. Smith is consistently in high demand for his confidential and customized executive coaching and counseling services. His practice helps emerging and experienced leaders to contribute to organizational effectiveness while focusing on career development initiatives. Through a combination of intervention methods such as process consultation, coaching for improved results and management methods, Dr. Smith’s approach provides continuous feedback and learning leading to self-awareness linked with business results and competencies.
Prior to launching his recruiting business, Dr. Smith was involved in education and development of youth in urban Chicago. In the early 1970s while still an undergraduate at George Williams College, he was recruited to the University of Chicago, where he began teaching, coaching, and served as an Assistant to the Vice President in addition to beginning graduate coursework. In 1972, he accepted the dual appointment at George Williams College as Professor and Assistant Director of Applied Behavioral Science and Graduate Social Work Education and also began his consulting practice. In 1974 he was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh, where while completing his doctorate he was a Professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and Social Work Education, coordinated academic services for athletes, and served as Executive Assistant Director of the Intercollegiate Athletic Program and the NCAA Division I National Championship football team.
Dr. Smith’s past and present civic commitments include serving on the boards of The Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito School of Management at The Claremont Graduate Universities (Claremont, California); The Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University; JumpStart, Inc. (northeast Ohio); The Cleveland Playhouse; Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE, Springfield, Missouri); advisory board of the National Black MBA Association Cleveland Chapter; and Board President Emeritus of The First Tee of Akron.