About Us

Tradewinds Career Consulting

About The Founder

I’m Monica Smith and I have spent 30 years living and leading across cultures so I can help you do the same. After more than 30 years leading diverse, multicultural teams across major financial services firms in Boston, Bangalore, and New York, I founded Tradewinds Career Consulting to help organizations unlock the power of purpose-driven, culturally intelligent leadership—at home and around the world.

My passion for global experiences began early. Growing up, my family moved across several regions of the United States, nurturing my curiosity about people and the world. That curiosity expanded internationally during my sophomore year of university, when I lived in Rome and traveled throughout Europe. After graduation, I completed a two-year Fulbright teaching assignment in Austria—an experience that cemented my love for global learning and cross-cultural connection.
Since then, I’ve continued to explore the world, traveling extensively across Europe, northern and eastern Africa, and the UAE. I later accepted an expat assignment in India, where I lived for three years and traveled widely across Asia. I also established a new business operation for my employer, Fidelity Investment in Dalian, China.

Throughout my career, I intentionally sought opportunities that combined my global interests with my professional goals. Over my final 12 years in corporate leadership, I focused on international roles—managing global delivery teams, building multinational business lines, designing cross-border governance models, forming strategic global partnerships, and structuring joint ventures.

These experiences—professional, cultural, and deeply human—now shape the work of Tradewinds Career Consulting and the leaders and teams we serve across the world.

Tradewinds Career Consulting

So why pivot to start Tradewinds Career Consulting?

I navigated my career by building high-performing, multicultural teams and igniting a shared sense of vision and purpose. Throughout my leadership journey, I focused on driving innovation, delivering exceptional client stewardship, and solving complex global challenges. My greatest professional satisfaction has always come from helping global teams and colleagues achieve ambitious cross-border initiatives—and sharing the tools, insights, and cultural fluency needed to get there.

Founding Tradewinds Career Consulting allows me to bring together my deep and varied global experience to offer bespoke consulting, advisory services, and coaching aligned precisely with the skills our clients want to elevate.
At Tradewinds Career Consulting, we guide organizations in cultivating cultures of creativity, alignment, and high performance. We partner with companies of all sizes—domestic and global—to help them create dynamic, purpose-driven work environments.

For domestic teams, our Re-ignite Your Teamwork program, powered by the Working GeniusesTM framework, strengthens collaboration and momentum through practical, sustainable strategies leaders can implement immediately.

In 2024, we expanded our offerings to include B2B solutions for Intercultural Leadership Development—a critical capability for organizations navigating outsourcing, mergers, acquisitions, and global expansion. By fostering resilient, cross-cultural collaboration, we help companies turn cultural diversity into a strategic advantage in any market.

As a frequent guest lecturer at international business schools in the United States, I share global leadership insights with the next generation—and continually learn from their emerging cross-cultural perspectives.

My work is dedicated to coaching and advising global professionals in intercultural leadership so they can build enterprises and teams that operate with mutual dignity, respect, and a shared commitment to thriving across cultures.