Anika-Aduesa Smart

Anika is Esri’s transportation thought leader transforming the GIS practice in transit and mobility from “just maps” into location intelligence. With just over 20 years in public transit, mobility and related industries, she successfully pairs her domain expertise with GIS experience to energize GIS teams across the world. Her most recent work at LA Metro radically changed the industry’s view of GIS, where even HR now sees the value add to support more effective workflows. Her slogan, “good data, better technology, best practices” aptly summarizes her call to move towards geospatial enablement. In her current role at Esri, she shows how transit can embed location analytics in non-traditional areas like real estate, marketing, equity, security, and sustainability, so that GIS becomes an institutional capability. Her unique insight and engaging approach guides teams to deliver enterprise-wide measurable outcomes, and clearer decision making. She holds a bachelor’s in mathematics with a concentration in Statistics from Columbia University, and soon an Executive Masters in GIS from the University of Redlands. Outside of work she loves orchids, hummingbirds, and landforms. She counts Port of Spain on Carnival Monday, the Nylon Pool, and anywhere with a great lime among her favorite places in the world.