Following a highly competitive national search, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University has named Kecia Williams Smith ‘95, Ph.D., CPA, dean of the Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics. Smith has served as interim dean since July 23, 2025.
The first N.C. A&T alumna and the second woman to lead the Deese College, the nation’s top-ranked HBCU business school, Smith follows Beryl McEwen, Ph.D., who served as dean from 2014 to 2017, when the college was known as the College of Business and Economics. Smith is a nationally prominent leader in accounting, having been named one of the nation’s Most Powerful Women in Accounting in 2022, as well as a leader in North Carolina, where she is a gubernatorially appointed member of the State Board of Certified Public Accountant Examiners.
She becomes permanent dean of a college whose MBA program has ranked among the nation’s top 100 for five consecutive years and that ranks No. 1 among HBCU MBAs…