The Mahogany Tower March 2021 Spotlight: George Smith
I’ve had the privilege of participating in many, MANY professional development programs over the course of my career. My junior year, I participated in one of the most highly esteemed leadership development programs for underrepresented minority students across the country: Management Leadership for Tomorrow (Shoutout to Career Prep ’13!). In my 2012 – 2013 academic year, I met some of the most promising future professionals of color across the US, and in the ~8 years since, I’ve had the honor of privilege of seeing many of their careers unfold before my eyes.
George Smith was one of my CP cohort peers (CP stands for Career Prep, not colored people, in case you were wondering). He’s been up to some pretty sensational things in the last 8 years, so I reached out to him about doing a spotlight, and he was THRILLED about the opportunity. He didn’t disappoint. Ladies and gentlemen, George Smith.
ACADEMIC BIO
Juris Doctorate, Columbia Law School
Master of Business Administration, Columbia University Graduate Business School
Bachelor’s of Arts in English, Georgetown University
Q: You mentioned that you got involved pretty early on with summer programs for high school students. Can you talk about how those helped to shape you and your interests?
I was the kid in middle/high school that did all of those “leadership” programs that one would get in the mail. I saw a gap in my learning (academically and socially) from the schools that I attended at the time and sought to supplement my development experience.
Specifically, I did People to People, Lead For America, National Youth Leadership Forum, and Junior State of America programming. Through these organizations, I gained opportunities to expand my cultural horizons through international travel, learn and engage government and civic service as a professional manifestation of public service, be introduced to the legal profession, and meet peers who were remarkably gifted and driven. These opportunities exposed me to a greater sense of what reality could be for me that expanded beyond the limitations of my Black, suburban experience in Houston, TX.
Q: One of those summer programs you did in high school was at Georgetown. When you got to Georgetown as an undergrad, you said they had a particular philosophy on education that you found helpful. Can you share about that?
Yep. I did a JSA summer program that was like a week during the summer in Austin at the University of Texas, and from that program I gained a “scholarship” to do the month-long Georgetown program later that summer. It was great, life-changing. It was my second time in DC (first time was through People to People at Barack Obama’s inauguration) and my first time spending significant time on a college campus. Learning on Georgetown’s campus—the atmosphere, resources, people, and overall experience—not only substantively increased my intellectual capacity (one of my ACT scores went up 10 points), but also made Georgetown my #1, which I evidently was able to successfully articulate in my college apps.
But to your question, Georgetown is fundamentally and foundationally a liberal arts institution. On top of that, I was a student of “the College” (of Arts and Sciences) which most strongly houses the University’s liberal arts identity. I like to explain Georgetown’s academic philosophy through the anecdote of my first meeting with my academic advisor where we began discussion of my four-year plan. At Georgetown, in the College, you come in undeclared and cannot declare a major until your sophomore year. As a freshman going into the meeting, of course my biggest concern was what my major would be and secondly how I would structure my academic experience based off of that decision. I will never forget what my academic advisor told me in that meeting. He said, “George, this is what I like to tell my students. The word ‘major’ is an adjective, and the noun to which it modifies is ‘interest.’ Therefore, one’s major is nothing but an indicator of what a student was interested in at that stage of his/her life. Nothing more, nothing less.” He urged me to take whatever classes interested me and encouraged me in my sophomore year to reflect on the classes that I would have taken by then. The goal was to identify the classes that I enjoyed and the ones that I did well in (read: made As). Then I was supposed to select a major/degree plan through which I could take those types of classes. He said that through this major, whatever it would be, I would engage the material more deeply, learn more about myself (e.g. what makes me tick and why, what questions/issues I was most passionate about, etc.), and develop a very strong foundation. From that foundation, I would be able to identify future opportunities—academic, professional, and personal—that would better align with me and find a greater sense of personal success.
Now, as a Black kid from Houston, TX, with parents from country towns in Louisiana who went to a southern HBCU in the 80s (shout out to The Illustrious Southern University and A&M College!), this advice shook me. It was inherently different from the collegiate strategy—the base mindset and disposition towards education—that I grew up with. At first, I was confused and resisted. However, after realizing/being real with myself that I (i) loathed the academic experience of the government major, (ii) didn’t want to transfer to the School of Foreign Service, (iii) enjoyed my English classes and made A’s (no minus), (iv) wanted to go to grad school anyway, and (v) was in a tier of academic institution that no one in my family before me had ever experienced, I let go and let God. I gave into it, I leaned into it, and—Praise!—it worked out exactly like my academic advisor said it would.
Q: Now, you studied English at Georgetown, but you actually ended up having A LOT of business experience, even before graduating. In some ways, you probably weren’t the ‘traditional’ liberal arts student. What helped you make that transition?
A couple of things. (1) I was blessed to go to Georgetown. From my experience, even today, Georgetown is the most “pre-professional” undergraduate institution in the country and likely the world (and I’m not being hyperbolic). At Georgetown, your identity in large part was based on the leadership position you held on campus and what internships you did over the summers and semesters. Everyone was a President or VP of something and everyone had very impressive internships. I’m fairly certain it had something to do with being in DC and how the locality—being an epicenter of both US and international politics as well as one of the most powerful cities in the world—informed how we engaged our personal and professional development.
(2) Reflecting over my life, I guess you can say that I’ve always been opportunistic. My default seems to have always been to seek out opportunities that might add some sort of value, apply to any and all of those opportunities, and then filter on the backend, that is accept or reject the opportunity. That, and I’ve always been big on listening to those older than me and learning from their experiences (both successes and mistakes). This is kind of how all those trips in middle school and high school happened and also how I landed in business. As a freshman, a lot of the Black and Brown upperclass student leaders who ran campus, had good grades, and secured dope jobs for after graduation did this program called Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT). It’s a diversity pipeline program that coaches college juniors through corporate recruiting, equipping them with skills to secure summer internships and full-time jobs. Though I was not into business at all as a freshman, I decided to apply my sophomore year after hearing just about every upperclass(wo)man I dearly respected talked about how the program changed their life (if they did it) or how they wished they had done the program. I got in and my life has never been the same. In fact, nearly every job I’ve had since undergrad has come to me somehow through my connection to MLT.
Q: MLT obviously was great for providing you access to really great professional opportunities. But for you, it also sounds like you got a lot of social and emotional support throughout the years, too, yeah?
Bro, YES! MLT is life! (You know this too. We met as classmates in the program after all—shout out to CP’13!) God put MLT in my life at a very critical inflection point in my development. I was a junior who had completed internships with the Mayor of Houston, TX, the Department of Justice in DC, and the State Department in Accra, Ghana, but I had no idea what I was going to do professionally. I knew I wanted to go to law school, but I also had a lot of mentors who told me to work first and I decided to heed their advice. Further, having just returned from my fall semester abroad, I was in a state of severe reverse culture shock while taking 16 credits full of all the hard and boring classes I refused to take into senior year. Life sucked, and I was despondent. I had lost my fire, and I was about to embrace a complacent mentality whereby I was just going to rest on the reputation of Georgetown and falsely hope everything was going to be alright. Then I went to my first seminar in April (I missed the first two because I was abroad) and met my class. MLT was the first time I had been surrounded by a critical mass of Black and Brown people my age who were incredibly intelligent, credentialed, and driven. I was surrounded by authors, business owners, investment banking interns, and app developers who all were hungry to eat and get this bag. Further, they were all LIT. My fire was reignited.
The people that I met in my MLT cohort as well as those that I’ve met from other cohorts and from other MLT programs (they’re also famous for their MBA Prep program, which I didn’t do) are some of the closest people in my life. These were the people I travelled the world with my senior year of college and (and continue to do so) post-college. These are the future aunts, uncles, and godparents to my children. These are the people I turned to when my mom got sick and I decided to move home to support her and my younger sister. They not only kept me accountable, not letting me forget about my grad school and career aspirations, but they also held me up emotionally and spiritually. When life became too much and I didn’t think I was going to make it through, they were there encouraging me. When I couldn’t pray for myself, these people petitioned the Throne and interceded on my behalf. I am alive today because of them. I am successful because of them. I am who I am today because of them. My MLT family. Period.
Q: You’ve worked on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs, and in Silicon Valley at LinkedIn. Looking at your resume on paper, it’s easy to assume you’ve always been a rising star. But you’ve had some very real setbacks, too. Can you share about some of those?
Look, lol, “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” I got laid off after working two years at Goldman Sachs. I got let go from LinkedIn after the company was acquired by Microsoft and I came clean to my manager about my family situation (i.e. my mom’s health issues). Both of these happened in the same year. It hit very, very hard. I was the straight A student in primary and secondary school, the high school valedictorian, a cum laude graduate of Georgetown University. So, when I didn’t achieve what the world defines as success for the corporate professional, i.e. one who’s THE top performer at a job that is interesting, fulfilling, and provides opportunities to save the world, it hurt. I felt hopeless for a minute.
But I learned some things though. The most important is probably this: I have to be in a job that stimulates my intellect and exercised a skill set that I want to develop. Neither my job at Goldman or LinkedIn did that for me. Yes, I developed skills and learned how to work hard, but when I looked to my left, right, and above me at those organizations, I didn’t want to be like any of the people that I worked with, especially the senior folks.
Q: Interestingly, you’ve worked at some of America’s most prestigious firms, but in many ways, you didn’t necessarily vibe that much with the work you were doing. Can you talk more about law and how that’s always been something that’s been on your mind and heart?
On the one hand, I believe that parents have a prophetic capability over their children. They watch and observe these human beings from the time they are born (before even developing a consciousness) and through their individual maturation. Thus, they can likely sometimes predict and/or draw connections between who these people may become and what they might be good at. For me, my parents—in just watching me do me—always told me I was going to be a lawyer.
On the other hand, I have yet to meet a lawyer who I haven’t admired just by virtue of how they think. I’ve always yearned for that skill set and eventually resolved that I needed it (and therefore needed to go to law school) to reach a sense of professional and academic fulfillment.
Q: Earlier when we talked, you emphasized the importance of being opportunistic, scrappy, and resilient. Why are those so important, particularly for underrepresented minorities?
From a U.S. perspective, this is a country that was not created, designed, or structured—conceptually or legally—with us in mind as equal stakeholders. The barriers are stiff and the ceilings are formidable. To survive and to succeed, we have to seek out every potential opportunity that has a potential value proposition for our individual circumstances. We have to fight to secure them because, more often than not, those disseminating the majority of these opportunities don’t have us in mind when thinking about their ideal candidate. And, when we’re knocked down, because we will get knocked down, we have to get up stronger than before. As an African American, the descendant of enslaved people in this country, I am a child of those who refused to die. My ancestors had it a lot worse than I did, they accomplished a lot more than I ever will, and, on top of all of that, they prayed for me to live the life I am living today. I can’t give up. I can’t quit. Nor can any of us.
From an international perspective, the same applies, just in a different iteration (e.g. swap out enslavement for colonialization and you get comparable contexts and modern day systemic problems).
Q: It sounds like you’ve had mentors at every step of your professional journey. Why do you think it’s harder for a lot of people to seek input, guidance, or advice?
Lack of humility and trust. Folks don’t like to feel that they’re out of control, and they don’t want to take the risk relying on others they do not know. Additionally, people who are type-A have a psychosis where they just “know” they’re right about just about everything and can do just about anything. For me, I grew up in a tradition where I was forced to sit at the feet of elders who then poured wisdom into me. In a sense, I’ve been conditioned to seek advice and mentorship. It has and continues to serve me well.
Q: With a degree in both law and business, your professional opportunities are limitless. Do you have a sense of what you’re interested in doing when you finish at Columbia?
Haha, let’s pray they are. From a business perspective, I’m very interested in the Private Equity/VC/Alternative Investing space(s). From a legal perspective, I really like the business development and client relationship management function of the attorney. Given this, the plan is to go to a Big Law firm after graduating and work in a corporate transactional practice group that service private equity clients. I love the idea of becoming a partner of a global law firm. However, I am trying to develop some semblance of an investment skill set to keep the door open on moving into the business.
Q: It sounds like you have a philosophy on capital that inspires you to succeed and give back to your community. Care to share more?
Sure. Like I said before, I was interested in government work as the professional manifestation of service. I grew up in a household where service to the community was part of our DNA, and I resolved to make that a central part of my career. So, I went to Georgetown, did a bunch of government internships, then landed into MLT and started working in business. At first, I thought that my finance internship would just be a line on my resume to diversify my work experience. However, I realized that, even though I hated my job, I appreciated the people I worked and hung out with in the private sector. They thought differently than me. They were procedural, process-oriented, value-driven from a pragmatic standpoint. As someone who was very theoretical and idealistic, I was drawn to the space and wanted to learn from it. So, I decided to immerse myself in finance in the interim before law school/grad school.
In my time working in the private sector, I adopted that practical and procedural mindset, and in doing so I began to value efficiency and results very highly. Working in the finance industry was also the first time I was in proximity to so much money, wealth, and capital. I remember having a conversation with a mentor about this, how I was conflicted because I saw value in this industry but hated it and wanted to go back to government so I could change the world. She told me: “George, answer this question: How are you going to save the world if you don’t have any money?” What she made me see and soon realize is that just about every major changemaker (definitely in contemporary times) was either rich/wealthy or had access to vast amounts of capital by which they were able to affect change. Politicians, business executives, heads of nonprofits, even some community organizers all had access to money.
At this stage in my life, my focus has shifted from a career in government to a career in the private sector. My goal is to amass as much capital as possible such that I can invest it, create a culture of wealth in my family—one that I, and by extension the community descended from the American enslaved, were legally, socially, and culturally prohibited from attaining. In addition to investing, I seek to deploy this capital directly into the communities I seek to serve. My issue with government work is that it is too high level, too theoretical. It’s a lot of guess and check work. The president proposes a policy, the legislature then tears it a part to the point it barely represents the initial proposal, then they make it into an Act of Congress, and then we have to wait 5-10 years to see whether or not this policy actually works in practice. That’s not fulfilling to me and it’s too risky for me. I want to provide capital and access directly to those of my community, and I want to be able to gauge its effectiveness early on so I can pivot or iterate, if needed, to maximize value in their lives.
Essentially, don’t give into this narrative that as a Black or Brown person, the only way you can do good in the world is by being broke and demonstrating in the streets non-violently. I need to think more energetically on this, but I have a theory that the reason many of us default to that path/belief is due, again, to systemic White (economic) racism and how it continues to try to keep us from amassing property, which is central to American citizenship and freedom in this country.
Q: Any advice for underrepresented students that are aspiring law or MBA students?
To the extent possible, work first. It’s going to help you contextualize career opportunities and experiences post-grad school. You’re going to mature more and better appreciate grad school.
Going back to grad school is a personal decision that isn’t really necessary (except for a few instances). Don’t just do it because either everyone else is doing it. Also, don’t not do it because others aren’t convinced. It has to make since to you.
Seek out those who have similar backgrounds to you (affinity, school, career path, etc.) and get advice/perspectives from as many people as you can. After the initial conversation, follow up with those that you really like periodically giving them updates on your life and decisions. That’s typically the first step in how I get people to be my mentors. And mentorship will help you make sense of your path.
Don’t overthink it. It’s not that hard to apply. Just do it. (If you need help, set an arbitrary deadline that makes sense to you and adhere to it). Also, know that the hardest part is getting in; you will finish.
Do MLT MBA Prep and SEO Law. (If you’re in undergrad, apply to their undergrad programs.)
For those getting an MBA and interested in a career in finance, take a look at the Toigo MBA Fellowship.