Rick Smith (author)

Rick Smith (born January 22, 1967) is an American entrepreneur, author and public speaker. Smith launched the World 50 global executive network.

Background

Rick Smith graduated from the University of Florida with a B.S. in Finance.[1] Smith earned an MBA in Marketing and Strategy from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Early in his career Smith worked for EDS in finance and marketing management, holding positions throughout the US and in Germany. After leaving EDS, he spent time as a strategy consultant with Gemini Consulting (formerly the MAC Group), and with Diamond Technology Partners. He worked as an executive recruiter with Egon Zehnder and Spencer Stuart.

In 2003, Smith co-authored his first book, The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers[2] (Random House/2003), and left recruiting to lead the book promotion. During this time, he conceived the idea for the company World 50. He founded World 50 in early 2004, growing the company as CEO to more than $10 million in annual revenue. He sold World 50 to Equaterra in 2007, and transitioned out in 2008. Smith's second book, The Leap (Portfolio/2009), chronicles the creation and growth of his company.[3]

In 2010, he joined with partners Scott Miller (the former CEO of Hyatt) and Dave Fuente (former CEO of Office Depot) to launch Next Generation Leadership, an organization specializing in executive education among upper management in the Fortune Global 500.

Smith lives with his wife Dr. Lori Smith and their 3 children in Atlanta, Georgia.

Business ventures

World 50, Inc.

Smith was the founder and CEO of World 50. The organization provides groups of senior executives a private peer membership for sharing insights on strategic and leadership issues. Smith founded World 50 in 2004 and was CEO for 4 years until he transitioned out in 2008. World 50 has hosted conversations with leaders in a variety of fields.

Next Generation Leadership

Founder/CEO of Next Generation Leadership- Next Generation Leadership's CEO Readiness Forum is an executive development program, created to help the CEOs and boards develop CEO-ready leaders. Next Generation Leadership was founded by Smith in June 2010 and is his most recent venture.

Other Projects

Techbridge

Smith was a founding board member of Techbridge, a nonprofit organization that provides technology and business consulting to other nonprofit organizations.

Atlanta Children's Museum

Smith was a board member during the capital campaign, construction and opening of the Atlanta Children's Museum.

Primary Color Assessment

In early 2000, Smith designed a model to map human ability and performance that was inspired by primary colors. After years of development with an industrial psychologist, the Primary Color Assessment was released online in 2009, free to the public.

Books
  • The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers was published in August 2003. It is a career development book that reveals the primary factors that determine how successful someone's career is. Research for the book is based on a survey of more than 2,000 business executives. The book explores the patterns of thought and action most correlated with successful careers. 5 Patterns was featured on Business Week's Best Seller List in October 2003.[4] ISBN 1-4000-8168-8.
  • The Leap examines the commonalities among individuals who have changed the course of their careers. It is a Wall Street Journal and Amazon Best Seller. The Leap has also been noted by several business leaders such as Huffington Post Editor-in-Chief Arianna Huffington [5] ISBN 978-1-61684-709-8.
gollark: Truly a masterpiece of techological ingenuity.
gollark: A cool Minecraft mod which is basically a programmable magic system:https://psi.vazkii.us (actual site)https://www.reddit.com/r/psispellcompendium/ (users' spells)
gollark: Unrelated, but it turns out that Cookie Clicker's "garden" feature supports surprisingly complex self-sustaining ecosystems.
gollark: ```As companies embrace buzzwords, a shortage of blockchain cryptocurrency connoisseurs opens. Only the finest theoretical code artisans with a background in machine learning (20 years of experience minimum) and artificial general intelligence (5+ years of experience) can shed light on the future of quantum computing as we know it. The rest of us simply can't hope to compete with the influx of Stanford graduates feeding all the big data to their insatiable models, tensor by tensor. "Nobody knows how these models really work, but they do and it's time to embrace them." said Boris Yue, 20, self-appointed "AI Expert" and "Code Samurai". But Yue wasn’t worried about so much potential competition. While the job outlook for those with computer skills is generally good, Yue is in an even more rarified category: he is studying artificial intelligence, working on technology that teaches machines to learn and think in ways that mimic human cognition. You know, just like when you read a list of 50000000 pictures + labels and you learn to categorize them through excruciating trial and error processes that sometimes end up in an electrified prod to the back and sometimes don't. Just like human cognition, and Yue is working on the vanguard of that.```
gollark: *was about to ask that*

References
  1. "Do You Really Know Bill Gates? The Myth of Entrepreneur as Risk-Taker". 2009-09-14.
  2. Citrin, James M.; Smith, Richard (2003-08-05). The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers: The Guide for Achieving Success and Satisfaction. ISBN 1400047943.
  3. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003B3NWCG
  4. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_40/b3852035_mz005.htm
  5. https://www.amazon.com/dp/product-description/1591842565
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