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Bradford D. "Brad" Smart is an American businessman, management consultant, industrial psychologist, and author who is best known as the originator of topgrading. He is the founder and CEO of Topgrading, Inc. (formerly Smart & Associates) and has worked directly with hundreds of companies throughout his career, including General Electric, Barclays, Honeywell, the American Heart Association, and Lincoln Financial. He and topgrading have been profiled in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Chief Executive, and many others.

Career
Smart earned his PhD in industrial psychology from Purdue University in the early 1970s. Smart entered the management consulting business in 1972 when he opened his consulting firm, Smart & Associates. Although he had yet to coin the term "topgrading," Smart developed similar principles early on in his career. He was interested in the methods companies used to hire people and how effective those methods were at producing high performers. In the 1980s and 90s, Smart consulted directly with Jack Welch of General Electric (GE), advising him to enact a program for hiring and promoting employees that could identify the best candidates for a particular job. GE used the hiring methods devised by Smart throughout the 80s and the 90s and continues to use them to this day. Smart also consulted with companies like Ameritech and AlliedSignal. Along with his son Geoff, Smart coined the term "topgrading" in 1997 in an article for Directors and Boards magazine. The article described the methodology that Smart had used to develop hiring practices at GE. Two years later in 1999, Smart released Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People, which went on to sell over 150,000 copies. Smart released a second edition of the book in 2005 and a third edition in 2012,  the latter of which was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller. The third edition contained a full 12-step process for applying the topgrading system. Smart changed the name of his consulting firm to Topgrading, Inc. in 2012. The company offers training programs to teach client managers how to employ topgrading. It also conducts topgrading interviews directly, and offers a selection of software products to support the method. Over the course of his career, he has consulted with a wide variety of companies and helped implement a topgrading program in many of them. He has consulted with companies and organizations like Lincoln Financial, Barclays, Honeywell, Hillenbrand Industries, Gateway, American Heart Association, and many more.

Personal life
With his wife Mary, Brad Smart has a son, Geoffrey (Geoff) Smart, and a daughter, Kathryn (Kate) Smart Mursau, both of whom have doctoral degrees in psychology. Geoff owns a management consulting firm called ghSmart & Co. that is based in Denver, Colorado. The father and son duo coined the term "topgrading" in a 1997 article in Directors and Boards magazine. Geoff has also written books on the subject, including Who: The A Method for Hiring, and Power Score: Your Formula for Leadership Success. Brad and his daughter Kate co-authored a parenting guide called Smart Parenting: How To Raise Happy, Can-Do Kids in 2006.

Non-fiction

 * The Smart Interviewer: Tools and Techniques for Hiring the Best (1990)
 * Topgrading: How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People (1999)
 * Topgrading (How To Hire, Coach and Keep A Players) (2005)
 * Topgrading for Sales: World-class Methods to Interview, Hire, and Coach Top Sales Representatives (2008)
 * Topgrading, 3rd Edition: The Proven Hiring and Promoting Method That Turbocharges Company Performance (2012)