Congratulations to George Smith, Our New COO!

George Smith has been with U3 Advisors since day one, when it consisted of a few skilled professionals figuring out how to address a new kind of consulting client: higher education institutions and their community partners. Two decades later, he’s still working to solve problems and create opportunities for communities across the country. Recently, he also became the firm’s first Chief Operating Officer, a reflection of his commitment to building a practice that will endure even as it innovates to meet the needs of a changing world.

You’re the first actual Chief Operating Officer that U3 Advisors has ever had. How did that come about and what does it mean to you?

I’ve been with U3 Advisors since the firm’s inception twenty years ago, and it’s gratifying to find ways to keep growing within the role. Oftentimes, we’ve had to design that kind of growth ourselves because we began as a startup, then became a small company, and over the years we’ve gotten a little bit bigger here and there. Throughout those twenty years, I feel like I’ve been a part of trying to set both the strategy for the company and its culture, working with Omar, working with the managing directors, and working with my colleagues.

One of the things that’s occurred is that as we’ve grown and people have been promoted, it was great to have these additional new voices, but also required some additional management and guidance to steer the ship. I’ve been stepping in just to help provide some of that direction and those leadership conversations as we make both day-to-day decisions and then broader strategic decisions within the company. Some aspects of this new position are just recognizing that organic growth. The other side of it means that I’m still seeking out new development opportunities so that I can continue to gain new skills and new capabilities. I’m lucky to be able to do all of this while staying within a company that I love and feel like I’ve helped create.

2026 marks 20 years for U3 Advisors. What is the firm doing differently now compared to how it operated and what it offered to clients 10 or 20 years ago?

When we started, we were a completely flat organization with no titles. We were using Omar [Blaik]’s basement as our office space with no business plan. We were just using our instincts and intuition to move us forward – and that worked well for a long period of time! As we’ve grown, however, we inevitably added structure and hierarchy and policy and all of the things a growing-up business needs. We now have a strong structure between Jaime [Flaherty], who’s been our long-time Chief Financial Officer, Jen [Mitchell] as our Chief of Staff, and Tracy [Moskowitz] as our Financial Controller; all of these elements have helped create a much more efficient operation, which I don’t think we necessarily could have envisioned having 20 years ago. Having the COO role be a part of that administration is just a natural evolution that will help us as we add more advisors to the team, open more offices, and work on more complex engagements.

As you work on getting new talent into the mix, what do you look for? What sets U3 Advisors apart from your competitors as you market the firm to the talent you need? 

We’re seeking those who have a passion for the work that we do, a passion for cities, and a passion for the role that higher education and other nonprofit institutions serve in their communities. We look for people who are fun-loving, who are curious, and who strike the right balance between being a self-starter while also asking the right questions and seeking the right guidance.

One word that a colleague of mine used to describe who we look for is “plucky.” I think that’s what we were when we started our own careers here and it still applies to what we want from new people coming into the company.

Are you seeing changes in the types of clients you’re attracting? 

Things change here and there. We’ve certainly been more active recently in the South and on the West Coast, which is not a surprise because those are growing markets and the institutions there have different kinds of needs and constraints that they’re trying to navigate, compared to communities in the Mid-Atlantic or the Midwest or the Northeast. We continue to be doing more what we call “downtown work”: projects like what we’ve been doing in San Diego or Fort Worth or Memphis that may have less of an institutional component to them, but are really about the changing nature of downtowns in post-COVID environment. Small colleges that have declining enrollment and challenging financial circumstances are always looking for ways that they can better utilize their assets and still contribute to the communities they reside within. If a higher education institution can no longer stay open, how do we repurpose those assets so that they can still be productive for those places? That work is only going to accelerate.

All that said, we’ll still have our bread and butter around university real estate strategies, innovation districts, and anchor strategies. There’s still plenty of that work coming our way and it’s an exciting opportunity to continue to help the company move forward. If that’s what’s needed, I’m the guy.