Christian D. Smith

Emory University, Goizueta Business School

“Tech-savvy humanist. Quiet-audience question-asker. Creator. Advocate.”

Hometown: Newark, NJ

Fun Fact About Yourself: A dominantly musical soul, I am a Master Vocal Impressionist.

Undergraduate School and Major: Stanford University – Symbolic Systems

Most Recent Employer and Job Title: TripleLift – Sr. Solutions Engineer

Aside from your classmates, what was the key part of the school’s MBA programming that led you to choose this business school and why was it so important to you? For me, the Goizueta MBA represents an opportunity for risk-seeking growth. Emory is intimately intertwined with Atlanta’s rise as a haven for entrepreneurs and underrepresented tech workers. I look forward to combining my tech acumen with a first class business education and getting my hands dirty.

What excites you most about getting your MBA at Goizueta? What makes you most nervous? I am at once excited and nervous to begin my MBA at the onset of a new American economy. Post-pandemic working styles will reward corporate leaders who can successfully produce results in a blended or fully-remote environment. I look forward to building upon this skillset with reserved optimism.

What other MBA programs did you apply to? MIT Sloan, NYU Stern, Haas Berkeley

What was the most challenging question you were asked during the admissions process? “Why an MBA?” will always be the most challenging question because it forced me to seriously consider all of the alternatives beyond pursuit of an MBA. It is always easier to fill the mind with reasons for inaction, with decision-inertia leading to the preservation of sub-optimal choices.

What led you to pursue an MBA at this point in your career? The Goizueta MBA is my path from executing the technical aspirations of others to building great products. With intimate experience as an individual-contributor engineer in each of the largest tech markets in the US (Seattle, SF, NYC), I have a unique perspective on successful culture traits from all the above. Similar to 2008, we find ourselves in a time of great uncertainty, which makes for the best time to pursue novel, world-changing ideas.

How did you determine your fit at various schools? Visiting campus and having lengthy, unscheduled interactions with current students lead to my assessment of comfort-level and opportunity for growth in a given school. Brochures, recorded testimonials, and even hosted informational mixers are a great way to gather the profile for each school, but I am a lifelong student of human-centered design, in which the first step in building something great for yourself or others is gaining empathy, ideally through informal interviews.

What was your defining moment and how did it prepare you for business school? / Describe your biggest accomplishment in your career so far: While I have led technical integrations leading to millions of dollars in profit in B2B SaaS companies, the defining accomplishment of my career to-date was raising $5k for COVID-relief and social justice awareness while at TripleLift last spring. The urgent need let me tap into my skills as a marketer and creator, synthesizing pandemic health-challenges and freedom-of-movement into a campaign resonating enough to garner donations from over 25% of TripleLifters. I was also able to collaborate with our co-founders to institute a review-board for publishers using TripleLift, preventing purveyors of false journalism and hate speech from monetizing through our platform. This experience will undoubtedly shape my confidence as a self-starter and owner of meaningful projects at Emory and beyond.

What is the most important attribute that you are seeking in an MBA employer – and why is that important? After business school, I look forward to working for an employer or investment team who foster cultures of autonomy and free knowledge transfer. As a creator, I do my greatest work when I can build freely. As a competitor who gravitates towards harmony, I look forward to building lasting products by tapping into the contributions of more talented specialists than myself.

DON’T MISS: MEET EMORY GOIZUETA’S MBA CLASS OF 2022