Rate My Professor Paul Smith

Professor Paul Smith serves as Professor in the Department of Marketing, Retail and Tourism within the Faculty of Business and Law at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he also acts as RKE Lead. He holds a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA), Master of Business Administration (MBA with distinction), Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (PGCTLHE with distinction), BSc (Hons), and professional designations including Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (FCA), Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA), and Certified Management and Results Specialist (CMRS). Prior to academia, Smith was a senior partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP for 17 years until 2016, specializing in technology-enabled process transformation for diverse industries. His teaching encompasses quantitative methods for doctoral and master’s students, B2B marketing, and applied market research, while he supports PhD candidates with statistical methodology.

Smith's research specializations include consumer and business decision making, B2B marketing, technology integration, market research, digital marketing, complex statistical modeling, and business applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning. He has served as lead or co-investigator on five UKRI-funded research projects and one contract market research initiative. Notable publications comprise the chapter 'AI and B2B Marketing' in The Sage Handbook of Industrial Marketing (2025, eds. Lindgreen et al.); 'Place attachment theory and virtual reality: the case of a rural tourism destination' in International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management (2024, with Pantelidis et al.); 'Teach well, learn better—Customer involvement and new product performance in B2B markets: The role of desorptive and absorptive capacity' in Industrial Marketing Management (2023, with Najafi-Tavani et al.); and 'Non-Adherence Tree Analysis (NATA)—An adherence improvement framework: A COVID-19 case study' in PLOS ONE (2021, with Edifor et al.). Additionally, he has presented at conferences such as the IMM Summit and Academy of Marketing. Smith advises multiple SMEs in technology, fintech, and manufacturing sectors, holds board advisory roles including with a global professional services firm, and is a Digital Advisory Panel Member for the UK Gambling Commission. As a regular public speaker on fintech and AI topics, he influences advancements in business research and practice through grant-funded collaborations.