Smead serves as Executive Vice President in the firm’s Chicago office. Prior to joining DHR, Ms. Smead served as Vice President at A.T. Kearney Executive Search in Chicago for approximately 15 years. There, she served clients in the diversified professional and financial services, industrial and retail/consumer industries The scope of her engagements included Chief executives in general management, finance, marketing, strategy, human resources, supply chain/strategic sourcing and legal. Moreover, she co-founded the firm’s Diversity Practice. Earlier in her career, Ms. Smead was a senior manager with Ernst & Young and KPMG Peat Marwick. She began her career at Booz-Allen & Hamilton. Ms. Smead holds a Masters degree in Management from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Illinois. She is involved in a variety of professional and not-for-profit organizations including the Illinois Women’s Forum, The Chicago Finance Exchange, the Boards of DePaul University Theater School, the Senior Women’s Business Forum and the Women’s Board of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.