Smith Andrews is the founder of Andrews Executive Search, a boutique retained search firm helping organizations find the leaders who will define their next chapter.

A Raleigh native and NC State graduate with deep roots across central and eastern North Carolina, Smith began his career in financial services leading business development and recruiting — work that gave him a ground-level understanding of what it takes to build high-performing teams. That path led him to executive search, where he spent years building his practice within other retained search firms before launching Andrews Executive Search on a simple conviction: great searches require a partner fully committed to the client from start to finish, “no hand offs”.

His journey into search was also shaped by service. As a board member of the Raleigh Rescue Mission, Smith served on the committee that hired the organization’s first new Executive Director in over 30 years — a high-stakes search that reinforced his belief in the weight of getting leadership right. He currently serves on the boards of Operation Resolute and Finding Purpose and is a member of Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh.

Outside of work, Smith is most at home with his family in the outdoors — especially along the North Carolina coast near Cape Lookout, the place that inspired the lighthouse identity at the heart of Andrews Executive Search. He and his wife Julianne have three children and a black lab named Junie B.