Steven Carl Smith

Senior Corporate Communication Specialist

Dr. Steven Smith (PhD, Chart. CIPR, SCMP) is a senior strategic communication leader, academic researcher, and practitioner with more than 20 years of experience across the wider Gulf region and South Africa. His expertise lies in communication leadership, cultural intelligence, technological stewardship, organizational transformation, corporate reputation, and stakeholder engagement, with particular experience in heavy industry, energy-intensive manufacturing, and utilities. At Marafiq, a publicly listed integrated power, water, and gas utility in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Steven serves as Senior Corporate Communication Specialist. He advises senior leadership and helps shape enterprise-wide priorities across brand, crisis preparedness, executive communication, and corporate positioning. His work supports Marafiq's transformation and growth agenda by ensuring communication is closely aligned with business priorities, sustainability objectives, and the broader ambitions of Saudi Vision 2030. Steven also serves on the International Committee of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), where he contributes a Saudi and Gulf perspective to international professional dialogue. Through the committee, he engages with public relations and communication practitioners from around the world to exchange insights, strengthen cross-cultural understanding, share emerging practices, and contribute to discussions on professional standards and the future development of the profession. His doctoral research makes a substantive contribution to Saudi Arabia's national knowledge base through the development of an empirically grounded, Saudi-specific definition and framework for strategic communication leadership. The research examines how communication leadership is shaped by culture, values, technology, organizational dynamics, and national transformation. Beyond Saudi Arabia, Steven's scholarship contributes to broader international debate by challenging predominantly Western assumptions in strategic communication theory and offering insights relevant to organizations operating in non-Western, highly regulated, and rapidly transforming environments. Across his professional, academic, and international work, Steven advocates for strategic communication as a leadership practice embedded in organizational decision-making. His work emphasizes the importance of stronger practitioner-organization reciprocity and the early involvement of communication practitioners in strategic decisions, enabling them to represent stakeholder perspectives, strengthen organizational responsiveness, and contribute to responsible transformation and sustainable societal value.