2024 Leadership Academy

Mackey Smith

Mackey Smith is the Head of Strategy Consulting at Tanner, LLC, a Salt Lake City-based professional services firm with 225 team members. Mackey is a leadership coach and consultant, and facilitates over 75 focus groups and leadership retreats each year across a variety of industries. He specializes in working with accounting firms, municipal and county governments, nonprofits, and family-owned businesses. His clients are often at a strategic inflection point, including ownership succession events, a need for conflict resolution, competing interests amongst stakeholders, operational inefficiencies, and emerging threats from disruptive competitors.

Mackey’s developmental workshops revolve around authentic introspection, both of the areas for improvement, and leveraging one’s strengths to achieve success. Frequent workshops Mackey facilitates include: Strengths-Based Leadership, Managing and Addressing Conflict, Addressing Generational Differences, and Vital Smarts’ 6-Sources of Influence Model. Mackey frequently writes and publishes takeaways from his retreats through the UACPA’s quarterly Journal Entry.

Prior to consulting, Mackey spent three years in retail, working two years as a manager for Target in Southern California, and interned with Walmart at its corporate office in Strategy & Innovations. In his teenage years, Mackey was a professional singer and entertainer, booking dozens of singing jobs in Los Angeles, and starring in the hit show “Glee” in the role of “Young Will Schuester” in multiple episodes. After stepping away from the entertainment industry, Mackey served a mission for his church in Newark, New Jersey, working on community building, specifically amongst Spanish speakers. Mackey is passionate about building trust in local government, and has presented to municipal and county leaders across the country on effectively improving community engagement with residents. Mackey strongly believes that local governments have the unique ability to create an inclusive culture for all their citizens and guests. In 2018, then Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams appointed him to serve on the Executive Board for Salt Lake County Council on Diversity Affairs. In 2019, Mackey was selected by Utah Business Magazine as one of its “20 in their 20’s” award winners.

Mackey holds a B.S. in Business Strategic Management from Brigham Young University, graduating summa cum laude.