Q: Now what’s a Marshall guy doing at WVU?

A: I have the same passion that West Virginia University and Marshall University share, which is creating an education for the next generation to effectively compete in this digital 21st century, while also reimagining West Virginia as the startup state, so we have the entrepreneurial talent graduating and building the world’s next big companies.

Q: Tell us about your vision on startups and how you feel that can boost the West Virginia economy and overall well-being of the state.

A: I call this a 75 percent reality. 75 percent of those graduating from school today don’t want to work for another company. They want to start their own company and run their own business.

The second reality is that 75 percent of all new jobs in any economy around the world are created by startups and small businesses, not the major employers we all know.

The third reality is that 75 percent of venture capital last year went to three states – California, New York and Massachusetts. So the talent is equally distributed. The passion is equally distributed. But the capital is not. However, capital follows great ideas.

The one thing that's been proven in entrepreneurism around the world is the No. 1 predictor of success is perseverance and grit. That’s because 90 percent of all startups fail. West Virginia has an abundance of resilience and grit. We know how to overcome adversity. So our vision and passion right now is to create the next chapter of West Virginia as the Start-Up State.

The best way I can describe why this is important to me is through one of my favorite songs, “Humble and Kind” by Tim McGraw. In the last stanza, he says, ‘When you get where you're going, don't forget to turn back around and help the next one in line. Always stay humble and kind.’ That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing.

“I have the same passion that West Virginia University and Marshall University share, which is creating an education for the next generation to effectively compete in this digital 21st century.”
- Brad Smith

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Smith shakes hands with Jake Armstrong, now a 2020 graduate in entrepreneurship and innovation, during Smith's visit to campus in March before COVID.

Q: What does West Virginia need right now?

A: The two great equalizers for the state are education and entrepreneurship. We should strive to develop an educational approach that’s more experiential and focuses on the 21st century skills. It should be inclusive at all levels, ranging from K through 12, vo-tech, two-year and four-year degrees.

And then there is entrepreneurship, where all the new jobs get created. We need to realize our mountains will always be a barrier to certain companies wanting to open offices here. But now you can do things like work remotely, connecting in the cloud and over Zoom calls. We don’t need offices, we simply need to prepare our talent. So we need to train our next generation to be entrepreneurs and be the builders again. Let’s build the next Amazon or Intuit or Cisco right here.

“The two great equalizers for the state are education and entrepreneurship. We should strive to develop an educational approach that’s more experiential and focuses on the 21st century skills.”
- Brad Smith

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Q: What do you miss about West Virginia?

A: The people.

Q: You worked for soft drink companies, so what’s your favorite soft drink?

A: Pepsi.

Q: Favorite band?

A: Kiss. They were my first concert when I was 12, Huntington Civic Center. And then when I retired as CEO, Intuit surprised me and flew Gene Simmons in. He signed a guitar for me.

Q: Favorite piece of literature?

A: John Milton’s “Paradise Lost.”

Q: Favorite book?

A: “Team of Rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin, a book about Abraham Lincoln’s leadership.

Q: Your impressions of visiting the WVU campus?

A: I am really impressed with the interdisciplinary collaboration that's happening across campus - how inclusive all the assets are. Not only to the students at any level where they can come and use them, but also increasingly to the community.

The velocity of idea to implementation is faster here than I have seen in 90 percent of the places I've been. It is truly applied engineering and applied innovation. It's not just an idea factory.

Smith meets noted neurosurgeon Dr. Ali Rezai and his team at the WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute.

Q: It sounds like you followed in his footsteps, in a sense. I see that you worked at Pepsi and 7UP early in your career. Did you do sales for them or something else?

A: Growing up, I always thought I wanted to be a journalist or an oceanographer. When I got out of college, I received a couple of job offers and didn’t know which to accept. One was working with the (Huntington) Herald-Dispatch newspaper. The other was an offer from Pepsi. I told my dad, ‘I don’t know how to make this decision. If I make the wrong decision, I’ll screw up my whole career.’ My dad laughed and told me it was a marathon, not a sprint, and gave me three things to think about.

The first was make the decision that makes your heart beat the fastest. The second was surround yourself with people smarter than you who will challenge and force you to grow. The third was don’t worry about money. Just make sure you can pay your bills doing what you love.

When I put them side by side, Pepsi was going to put me in a very big stretch situation managing six teamsters in Indianapolis, Indiana. I’d never lived outside the state. I took the job and the rest is history.

Q: Can you expand on your career trajectory? How do you get from Pepsi to Intuit?

A: I spent five years with Pepsi moving through the company in different levels from managing the drivers who deliver the soft drinks to calling on key accounts and selling advertising. And I got a master's at night at Aquinas College in Michigan. Then I had an inbound call from 7UP saying, ‘We'll give you a chance to be a general manager.’ I was 27 years old. At Pepsi that wouldn't have happened before I was 35. And so I violated my dad's principle of taking a job just for more money, and it wasn’t a great fit.

I only stayed there a couple of years. I followed a Pepsi mentor who had since left the soft drink industry and had gone into direct mail marketing with a company called Advo in Connecticut. He recruited me out of the soft drink industry and said, ‘Come with me and let’s learn about this new thing called big data.’ Back then, instead of targeting on the Internet, which was not yet commercially viable, you targeted through the mail system. But you used algorithms to figure out who Diet Coke drinkers were and you’d send them Diet Pepsi coupons. I was in love with the power of data and technology.

Q: So that’s how you got to tech and big data?

A: Yes, I was recruited by ADP, the global human resource and payroll provider to lead their marketing efforts in their small business division. Soon, I was asked to lead a team that ultimately launched the first Internet payroll service, and that experience led me to the role of Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. After six years with ADP, I was recruited by Intuit, where I started in Texas calling on the accountants, CPAs. From that role, I was asked to go to TurboTax as the general manager for the business in San Diego.

After a short stint, I was asked to lead the QuickBooks small business division in Mountain View, California. I moved through those three roles in five years. In August 2007, I was tapped to become the company’s CEO, which was a complete surprise to me.