The Leadership Strategist and AthleticPreneur ™
Monique AJ Smith, a Higher Education veteran of 28 years, launched her consulting business Seeds of Empowerment ® LLC full-time March 2013. Smith has been conducting workshops for youth, women, educational and corporate organizations as well as senior citizens since 2005. The B.O.S.S. Network has listed Seeds of Empowerment® as one of 50 businesses to watch.
For more than 22 years she has provided consultation on Title IX, NCAA compliance, and rules education as well as served on several NCAA Committees. For 2 years she served as consultant to the NCAA Leadership Development Department by conducting campus and conference workshops for student-athletes and athletic administrators. Topics for student-athletes have been DiSC, Step-Up Bystander Intervention, Networking, and Emotional Intelligence. Staff Retreats ranged from half-day DiSC assessments to full day retreats on How to rejuvenateyour staff and to How to Reach and Repeat Success.
Smith is an accomplished Sports Management Professional with a13 year tenure as athletic conference executive for the historic Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA). She also served in various athletic administrative roles on the campuses of Saint Paul’s College and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore within a ten year period. Smith was a member of the Adjunct Faculty at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia and currently serves Hampton University as an adjunct teaching Sports Management courses.
In addition, Monique host the nationally recoginized weekly podcast “A Chat in the Garden with Monique A.J. Smith” where women in Higher Ed, specifically Athletic Administration are spotlighted. The listener base has grown to 950 member private Facebook community where topics such as Depression for the High Achiever, How to become an AthleticPreneur ™ and Women Leading Football Programs are discussed with experts in the former of webinars. Monique likes to say, “the Garden identifies the need and I go out find resources to feed that need”.
With the understanding that knowledge is the key to success, Smith customizes her presentations to provide clients with leadership tools to prepare them to make informed decisions. Monique has dedicated her life to marketing the success of others, developing opportunities for the underrepresented and influencing decision makers to embrace diversity and inclusion. These actions have led to extraordinary opportunities to facilitator change and see strives in the development of others.
