Blair C. Smith is Senior Director of the Center for Financial Markets at the Milken Institute, with more than 20 years of financial services and capital markets experience. Mr. Smith leads the Institute's work in Alternative Investments. He created the Inclusive Capitalism Program and leads the Center’s strategic alternative financing initiatives to enhance both economic and social impact. This includes greater Equity and Inclusion in Asset Management, as well as Impact Investment including CDFIs, MDIs and Mission Driven Institutions.

Mr. Smith was the Founder and CEO of Promethean AB Strategies LLC, a strategic consultancy focused on helping diverse led Asset Management firms achieve their goals.

He was Chief Investment Officer for the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation, a CDFI (Community Development Financial Institution).

Mr. Smith was responsible for co-managing a $5.2 billion Emerging Manager investment portfolio, within the State of New York Common Retirement Fund. The program has both traditional and alternative asset class strategies including: real estate, private equity, public equity, hedge funds and opportunistic. He actively evaluated and conducted research for new investment vehicles/platforms that could strategically implement the long-term goals of the portfolio and provide risk adjusted returns.

Earlier in his finance career, Mr. Smith served for over 10 years as an Ultra High Net Worth Relationship Manager with both the Greenwich, Connecticut and New York City teams at various top tier banks.

Mr. Smith received his M.B.A. in Finance from Columbia University and a B.S. in Journalism from Morgan State University (an HBCU) where he was a 2 year ROTC scholar.

He is a member of the Economic Club of Washington DC, the Real Estate Executive Council and is a 2019 Council of Urban Professionals (CUP) Finance Catalyst recipient. He has been featured in Alternative Investments and Pension and Investments magazine discussing Impact Investing.

Mr. Smith was appointed an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Business in 2022.

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