Jeffrey Chad Smith or Jeff Smith, is an American hedge fund manager who headed

Starboard Value Starboard Value is an American hedge fund that was founded in 2002 by Jeffrey Smith and Mark Mitchell with Smith serving as CEO.Butt, Rachel; Here are the 10 biggest activist money managers and some of their most impressive bets; Business Inside ...

since April 2011. In 2014, William Cohan of ''Fortune'' called Smith " e most feared man in corporate America."

Early life and education

Smith grew up in Great Neck, Long Island. His mother was a real estate broker, and his father founded the Fresh Juice Company. In 1994, Smith received a degree in economics from the

Wharton School The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in P ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

Career

Smith began his career in the mergers and acquisitions department at

Société Générale Société Générale S.A. (), colloquially known in English as SocGen (), is a French-based multinational financial services company founded in 1864, registered in downtown Paris and headquartered nearby in La Défense. Société Générale ...

. From August 1994 to February 1996, he worked as a financial analyst in the mergers and acquisitions department at LSG Advisors. He was vice president of strategic development and investor relations at Fresh Juice from February 1996 to January 1998, becoming its director in April 1996. After Fresh Juice was sold in 1998, Smith moved to Ramius Capital, a hedge fund and private equity firm founded by Peter A. Cohen. Smith served as a partner and managing director at Ramius. In 2002, he and a colleague, Mark Mitchell, launched the Starboard Value investment strategy at Ramius. Smith became executive managing director of

Cowen Group Cowen Inc., is an American multinational independent investment bank and financial services company that operates through two business segments: a broker-dealer and an investment management division. The company's broker-dealer division offers i ...

in January 2004. Peter Hart joined the Starboard Value division in 2005. In 2008, Ramius merged with Cowen Group.

Starboard Value

In 2011, Starboard went independent, with Smith as CEO. On September 12, 2017, Smith said that

Perrigo Perrigo Company plc is an American Irish–registered manufacturer of private label over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, and while 70% of Perrigo's net sales are from the U.S. healthcare system, Perrigo is legally headquartered in Ireland for tax ...

, a manufacturer of store-brand pharmaceuticals, and

Altaba Altaba Inc. was a non-diversified, closed-end management investment company based in New York City that was formed from the remains of the first incarnation of Yahoo! Inc. after Verizon acquired old Yahoo's Internet business. Verizon completed i ...

, formerly Yahoo, were his favorite stock picks.

Other positions

Smith served as chairman of the board of

Phoenix Technologies Phoenix Technologies Ltd is an American company that designs, develops and supports core system software for personal computers and other computing devices. The company's products commonly referred to as BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) or fir ...

from November 2009 to November 2010. He was director of

S1 Corporation S1 Corporation was an American software development company based in Norcross, Georgia which specialized in payment processing and financial services software for automated teller machines and retail point of sale applications, primarily for b ...

from May 3, 2006 to September 2008, of Kensey Nash from December 2007 to February 2009, of

Actel Actel Corporation (formerly NASDAQ:ACTL) was an American manufacturer of nonvolatile, low-power field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), mixed-signal FPGAs, and programmable logic solutions. It was headquartered in Mountain View, California, with ...

from March 18, 2009 to October 2010, and of

Zoran Zoran ( sr-Cyrl, Зоран) is a common South Slavic name, the masculine form of Zora, which means ''dawn, daybreak''. The name is especially common in Serbia, North Macedonia, Croatia and a little in Slovenia. Notable people with this given na ...

from March 2011 to August 2011. He served as a director of SurModics from January 2011 to August 2012, as independent director of

Regis Corporation Regis Corporation is an American operator of hair salons. As of August 2021, it has 5,563 franchised and 276 company-owned salons. Its headquarters are in Saint Louis Park, Minnesota. The primary trade names Regis salons operates under are SmartS ...

from October 2011 to October 2013, and as a director of

Quantum In physics, a quantum (plural quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a physical property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantizati ...

from May 2013 to May 2015. He has been director of

AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017� ...

since May 2012. He was independent non-executive chairman of

Darden Restaurants Darden Restaurants, Inc. is an American multi-brand restaurant operator headquartered in Orlando. As of January 2022, the firm owns two fine dining restaurant chains: Eddie V's and The Capital Grille; and six casual dining restaurant chains: O ...

, from October 2014 to April 2016 and has been that firm's director since October 2014. He has been independent director of

Advance Auto Parts Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (Advance) is an American automotive aftermarket parts provider. Headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, it serves both professional installer and do it yourself (DIY) customers. As of July 13, 2019, Advance operated ...

, since November 2015, and its independent chairman since May 2016. He served as an independent director of

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

from April 2016 to June 2017 and an independent director of

since February 2017. He has also served on the boards of

Jotter Technologies The Parker Jotter is the Parker Pen Company's second and best-selling retracting refillable ballpoint pen. The first was the Hopalong Cassidy ballpoint. (Later a fountain pen, mechanical pencil and rollerball pen were introduced to the line). S ...

and

Office Depot The ODP Corporation is an American office supply holding company headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The company has combined annual sales of approximately $11 billion, and employs about 38,000 associates with businesses in the United States. ...

.Jeffrey Chad Smith; Bloomberg; https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=6233796&privcapId=129369526

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Jeff Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American chief executives of financial services companies Chief investment officers People from Great Neck, New York Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania alumni