2026 Keynote Speaker

Wendy K. Smith

Wendy K. Smith is a globally recognized leadership expert who helps executives navigate complexity through both/and thinking. As the Dana J. Johnson Professor of Management at the University of Delaware and a Fellow of the Academy of Management, she has spent more than two decades researching how leaders make smarter decisions amid competing demands such as innovation and efficiency, purpose and profit, and stability and change

. She earned her BA from Yale University and PhD from Harvard Business School, where she started her intensive study of strategic paradoxes.

Named one of theThinkers50 Top 50 Management Thinkers and recipient of the Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award, Wendy’s research has ranked among the top 1% most cited worldwide for the past 7 years consecutively and has been featured in leading academic journals and Harvard Business Review and has earned multiple awards. She is the co-author of Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems (Harvard Business School Press), translating 25 years of research into practical tools leaders can apply immediately.

Wendy does not just study paradox; she lives it. She brings academic rigor to inspire practical advice; leans into her endless curiosity to provide world-class strategic advice, and learns profound leadership skills from joining her husband to parent three teenagers. Whether guiding Fortune 500 companies or navigating the daily choreography of work and family, Wendy brings rigor, warmth, and a belief that complexity, when engaged well, is a source of energy rather than exhaustion.