Darryl Smith

Darryl is a Principal with FMG Leading, a team of advisors who help clients build world-class organizations by aligning business strategy with human capital strategy. An intuitive, inclusive leader, Darryl brings over 25 years of experience as a leadership facilitator, strategist, human capital advisor, executive coach, and speaker.

Among Darryl’s many strengths is his ability to collaborate with clients to understand their culture, challenges, and objectives. He helps clients craft measurable strategies that accelerate development and continuous engagement at all levels within the organization. Darryl is an experienced and effective communicator who focuses on building relationships and promoting synergy across business lines to drive positive change, establish cohesive, comprehensive business approaches, and ensure improved profitability.

Darryl also brings more than 15 years of extensive global experience supporting senior leaders in developing, launching, and measuring structural and behavioral Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. His work in the space has been underscored by his belief that a singular, one size fits all approach is not effective in supporting organizations; moreover, it will not foster an intentional, sustainable cultural transformation. Darryl’s holistic approach to DEI is always grounded in the organizations’ empirical cultural data – assessing the leading and lagging indicators related to DEI and other business drivers.

In addition to his work in the DEI space, Darryl is proficient in strategic planning, senior leadership development, inclusive leader development and coaching, diversity council, business resource group development, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and measurement. His advisory work spans a wide range of industries – including financial services, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, government, not-for-profits, and education.

Prior to joining FMG Leading, Darryl served as a Senior Client Partner at Korn Ferry’s Chicago office, where he managed cross-functional teams to help clients shape their enterprise-wide diversity and inclusion business cases and strategies across a range of industries. Earlier in his career, Darryl worked for various Fortune 500 companies in business development, training, and management functions. His previous clients include Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Beam Suntory, Delta Airlines, and Suffolk Construction.