Robert M. Smith
President, RSM Consulting
After graduating from the University of Colorado (that’s right a Buffalo) with a degree in finance in 1985, I decided to head to the financial capital of the world, Des Moines, Iowa. Well, maybe not the financial capital of the world, but home to a number of large insurance companies. I was hired by the Triangle Insurance Group as “special assistant” to the CFO. Of course my actual title was assistant controller, and my exposure to some of the most complex financial transactions, including the $23 billion acquisition of the Circle Insurance Group, gave me invaluable experience in analyzing and evaluating numerous financial arrangements routinely entered into by large financial institutions.
In 1991, I decided to add to that experience and enroll in business school. Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management accepted me. I was thrilled with that, since Kellogg was ranked as the 3rd best business school in the nation by US News and World Reports during my two years of attendance. I don’t think I can take full credit for the school’s high rankings during those years, but I’m willing to take a little of the credit.
After graduation in 1993, I joined the Wall Street investment bank of Warburg Lipton. New York was indeed the center of the financial universe during my 15 years there (though I did spend 3 of those years in Germany opening up WL’s Berlin office). I loved my job, though as I’ve mentioned in my introduction, there were trade-offs. Finally, in 2008 (October 18th to be exact), I took my leave of New York and headed home to Atlanta, Georgia, where friends and family welcomed me back—just as if I hadn’t been gone for the past 26 years.
About RSM Consulting
Our clients call us when they have something pressing on their minds—whether it is a major strategic or operational need or an organizational challenge. They look to us for honest, objective, thoughtful, and experienced advice.
With our broad reach across industries, functions, and geographies, we speak our clients’ language. We live where they live. We understand their business. We help people and companies explore extraordinary opportunities, manage and sustain growth, and maximize revenue.
We do this using these core principles:
Follow the top management approach
Use our global network to deliver the best of the firm to all clients
Bring innovations in management practice to clients
Build client capabilities to sustain improvement
Build enduring relationships based on trust
We earn our clients’ trust. We do this through our consistently superior service, our professional conduct, and our complete commitment. Each one of us is responsible for earning and keeping our clients’ trust with our individual behavior and the quality of our work. We care for our clients as people and organizations, even when we are not serving them.