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Smit is an existential thinker and high-impact strategist with a passion for helping others deal with life’s complexities. He believes in the human being’s capacity through free will and choice to respond to life’s challenges and progress towards a more sustainable existence, which he terms ‘Existainability”.
Smit has more than thirty years’ international multi-faceted experience and training in the fields of business, law, finance and the humanities.
He has worked in diverse environments including Multinational, International Development Multilateral Organisations and Private Practice across both developed and emerging markets, serving in various capacities from professional advisory to senior executive including senior special advisor to the World Bank Group’s IFC on complex matters.
Smit has widely acknowledged skills in bringing understanding through insights to complex situations and interpersonal relations with sustainable outcomes. Smit has facilitated, negotiated and mediated various personal conflicts and complexities including international investment disputes at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (Washington, USA) and the ICC – International Court of Arbitration (Paris, France). As guest lecturer, Smit has been teaching a program he developed entitled “Mediation as Strategic Conflict and Complexity Resolution Enabler” for an Erasmus program in Europe.
Smit originally qualified as an international lawyer/advocate and certified mediator (UK), holding LLB, LLM degrees, and an International Director Certification from INSEAD, France. Through participation in various executive programs, he is an alumnus of various leading business schools and universities including Harvard (USA), Oxford (UK), INSEAD (France), and Singularity (USA).
In the field of humanities, Smit has academic association with the University of Essex (UK) department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalysis, the Paris Lodron University Salzburg and the GLE (Gesellschaft für Logotherapie und Existenzanalyse), Austria in Existential Philosophy, Analysis and Psychotherapy – clinical training. Smit holds an Academic Associate Credential from the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy in the USA – American Psychological Association (APA) approved, membership with the Federation for Existential Therapy in Europe (FETE), and membership with the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society in New York. Smit also has post graduate qualification and credentials in personal and executive coaching and positive psychology, health and wellness coaching from the College of Executive Coaching (USA) – credentials accredited by the Board of Medical Examiners in the USA.