MANAGEMENT TEAM

Chris Smith
Vice President of Sales & Marketing
The Barbour Group

Christopher Smith

As Vice President of Sales at The Barbour Group, Chris Smith brings a passion for protecting people and assets, as well as a desire to help create growth of client companies, to his pivotal leadership role in the company. An experienced surety broker and head of The Barbour Group’s property and casualty insurance sales division, Smith is focused on delivering surety bonding and commercial insurance solutions to companies ranging from startups to medium sized firms to Fortune 1000 companies. Smith also directs The Barbour Group’s marketing functions.

As a key external advisor to client companies, Smith takes personal interest in their success while always adhering to the highest degrees of professionalism, confidentiality and integrity. For Smith, the true hallmark of achievement is helping companies realize profitable growth. Proud to be a team player, Smith has mastered the ability to create rapport across organizations and capture diverse viewpoints while developing custom bonding and insurance solutions.

Since joining The Barbour Group in 2005, Smith has been at the forefront of business development and client service activities that have helped the firm achieve a phenomenal 352% growth rate. Smith came to The Barbour Group from Eli Lilly and Company, a global pharmaceutical corporation, where he received national recognition for his sales results and leadership contributions.

Known for his determination and inexhaustible work ethic, Smith has a reputation for finding cost-effective solutions to the most pressing bonding and insurance challenges. When Bally International, the leading international gaming systems manufacturer, needed a surety partner to tackle a complicated State of Maryland bonding proposal, Smith and his team earned client praise by demonstrating the know-how needed to navigate the proposal’s complexities. Smith further impressed Bally by leveraging The Barbour Group’s established relationships with key procurement officials to ensure open communication and, ultimately, the best possible fit with the state’s contractual goals.

Once Bally had secured the contract, Smith hit another home run for the client by successfully working with one of the nation’s biggest surety bonding companies to obtain the bonds needed at multiple project locations to back Bally’s performance. By demonstrating that The Barbour Group has the right relationships with the right bonding companies, Smith reinforced his own stature as a key player in surety markets.

Smith is quick to credit his success to the support he receives from The Barbour Group’s dedicated team of service professionals, all of whom share his commitment to proactive risk management and excellent customer service.

Smith, a strong advocate for Maryland’s Small Business Development Center, gives back to the community in a variety of ways. Volunteering his time, he serves as an adjunct faculty member at both Harford and Carroll Community Colleges, where he teaches courses on property and casualty insurance and commercial risk assessment. Smith is also a board member of the Carroll Area Transit System, a nonprofit corporation that provides community transportation to residents of Carroll County, Maryland.

A summa cum laude graduate of Adrian College in Michigan, with a bachelor’s in business administration, Smith has completed executive education studies at The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

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