Lauded by colleagues for his ability to expertly navigate the challenges of driving change and innovation at the university, Smith’s visionary leadership helped grow Entrepreneurship at Miami into a perennially recognized program on a national level. “Where others saw disparate bits and pieces, Brett saw the whole picture,” wrote one nominator. Smith is credited with fanning the spark that made Entrepreneurship an interdisciplinary, cross-university program that has been ranked in the top 10 by the Princeton Review for 15 consecutive years.

Smith’s work has been cited more than 3,500 times. He has 60 publications, including 33 academic journal articles, with research focused on identity and legitimacy issues of social and religious entrepreneurs, investors, and accelerators. “With respect to his overall research contribution, it is fair to say that professor Smith has become a global academic leader in scholarship focused at the interface of entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship,” wrote one external nominator.

Ten of Smith’s journal articles have been published in the prestigious Financial Times Top 50 academic business journals, including nine since 2015 with the collaboration of three Miami undergraduates.