Wendy K. Smith

Wendy K. Smith  is the Dana J. Johnson Professor of Management at the Lerner College of Business and Economics, University of Delaware. She earned her PhD in organizational behavior at Harvard Business School, where she began her research on strategic paradoxes—how leaders and senior teams effectively respond to contradictory, yet interdependent demands.  Her scholarship has been published in such journals as Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, and Management Science. Her best-selling book, Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems (HBSP, 2022) has been a Top 10 Book of the Year from Thinkers 50, a finalist for the Next Big Idea Club and featured in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Newsweek, Forbes and others. Wendy received the Web of Science Highly Cited Research Award 7 times (2019-2025) for being among the 1 percent most-cited researchers in her field, twice won the Decade Award from the Academy of Management Review for the most cited paper in the past 10 years (2021, 2024), as well as the Decade Award fromthe Academy of Management Annals (2026). She also received the Francis Alison Award (2026), University of Delaware's top award for a scholar-educator.  She was awarded the 2023 Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award and named to the 2025 Thinkers50 top 50 global management thinkers for her insights about paradox. In addition to teaching leadership and ethics at University of Delaware, Wendy has also taught at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania–Wharton while working with executives worldwide to more effectively navigate tensions and make more effective decisions. More importantly, Wendy loves travelling, running, drinking great coffee and hanging out with fabulous colleagues.

Position · UNSW Sydney