"Our ultimate goal is to phase ourselves out of a job - with the confidence that our clients will successfully lead and sustain their investment in corporate responsibility."

Neil Smith
Managing Partner
SmithOBrien

SmithOBrien Consulting Team

Whether individually or in cross-functional teams, SmithOBrien senior consultants and strategic partners have demonstrated their expertise by leading major industry initiatives including:

Industry's first Supplier Code of Conduct at Levi Strauss
Industry's first same-sex domestic partners benefits plan at Lotus Development Corporation
First application of Total Quality Management with the Balanced Scorecard at Analog Devices
White House Apparel Industry partnership, resulting in the first uniform code of conduct and monitoring framework for the apparel industry
Authorship of the first book on stakeholder relations
Industry's first methodology for reliably quantifying the effects of CSR on corporate profitability

Founding Partners

Neil Smith is co-founder and managing partner at SmithOBrien, where since 1992, he has led the firm’s corporate responsibility strategy development and organizational change practice and Shareholder Resolution Advisory services. He has extensive experience in helping to institutionalize corporate core values, progressive operational practices and culture change, including being instrumental in the highly-recognized transformation of Chiquita Brands. Neil is a founding partner of innovation, measurement 21^st century (im21), which specializes in the use of network analysis and mapping and on-line facilitation to produce inclusive collaboration and communication in order to accelerate innovation, problem-solving, and corporate responsibility/sustainability. He is a part-time faculty member at The New School’s Milano School of Management and Urban Policy and a former adjunct at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. A lifelong sailor, Neil authored Shopping for Safer Boat Care (International Marine, McGraw-Hill, 1997), which analyzed the environmental and health affects of 100 marine products, and has contributed to many other books, including Transforming Sustainability Strategy into Action. Other clients have included Calvert Group, Gillette, Starbucks, Covidien, Symantec, Hewitt Associates, Benjamin Moore, and TJ Maxx.

Joseph O'Brien advises corporate and institutional clients on branding and communication. He was previously an award-winning creative director in the advertising industry, producing marketing campaigns for General Electric, Miles Laboratories, Raytheon Data Systems, Textron, ITW, Thermo Electron, and more. Earlier in his career, he spent four years in The Netherlands as international director of marketing communications at Vitatron Medical. Joe's experience in health care and bio-medical industries has resulted in consulting engagements at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Rhode Island School of Design, and Brown University and appointment as adjunct faculty at Florida Atlantic University.