Carl Smith
Americas Advisory People Leader
Ernst & Young
Excellence in Leadership
Carl Smith is a people person. Literally. And Smith would have it no other way. He currently serves as the Americas Advisory People Leader at Ernst & Young for a practice of 10,000 professionals providing Performance Improvement, Risk management and IT Risk services.
His responsibilities cover all people related functions of recruiting; acquisitions, learning & development; experience management/ staffing; inclusiveness/diversity, performance management, HR operations and partner matters. In this role, he led the full-scale transformation of the people functions to achieve Americas and Global recognition for the design and deployment of innovative and best in class approaches to people excellence.
"We are making a difference that impacts the consulting profession's most important asset—people," he says. "The focus on the people agenda—how we attract, develop and retain people—directly impacts our ability to provide exceptional client service."
Smith led the full-scale transformation of the people functions and is most proud, he says, of the performance of the extended people team, which has "consistently stepped up and performed at an exceptional level. In fact, many of the redesigned processes and related initiatives are being leveraged in other Ernst & Young Service Lines and at a global level.
And Smith has compiled quite an impressive checklist of accomplishments, including: Hiring 3,000 professionals, including the integration of several acquisitions; the deployment of a recruiting approach that has resulted in women representing 30 percent of all direct admit partner hires; the promotion of Partners & Executive Directors that will be 20 percent higher than last fiscal year; improvements in the approach and enabling tools to support staffing: "right person, right place and right time."
In addition, Smith orchestrated the launch of the "Leadership Journey," which features female partners with a very personal view into their leadership journey, along with leadership discussion forums.
Smith says the biggest factor to his success is "a lifelong passion to take on challenges," and "an ability to see the big picture and energize others to develop to their full potential and take on challenges that achieve measurable results."
Smith's own path hasn't followed the traditional career arc—stretching from psychology to accounting to mergers/acquisitions to business process to IT consulting. That fact, he says, "has truly broadened his perspectives on people and ability to lead others in solving complex issues that are always focused on achieving measurable results."
Q&A: What does winning the Top 25 award mean to you, your firm and your clients?
"For me, it's the recognition and validation of a lifelong commitment to leading and helping others be successful. For the firm and our clients, it's the recognition of the firm's commitment to people excellence."
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