i.
Operating cadence over heroic effort.
Strategy is what an organization actually does on the days no one is watching. A steady cadence beats a great quarter.
Enterprise Leadership Strategist
Translating ambition into the
operating habits
decision rights
daily practices
working systems
that deliver it.
I'm Brandon — a strategist who's spent twelve years working alongside the executives, founders, and operators carrying real weight. The job is the same every time: turn ambition into a practice the team can actually run.
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About
Senior Manager · The Cigna Group
I help leaders do the job they signed up for.
I'm Brandon — a strategist who's spent the last twelve years next to CEOs, COOs, and the operators carrying the weight of large organizations. Today I lead Enterprise Strategy & Delivery at The Cigna Group, owning the Enterprise Operating Model that governs how 1,800+ technology teams plan, fund, and ship.
Before Cigna, I served as Director of the Agile Practice & Center of Excellence at CGI Federal — building the practice that supported $150M+ of federal civilian modernization across CMS and the VA, and personally certifying 216 SAFe practitioners along the way. The job hasn't changed: translate ambition into the operating habits that actually deliver it, and keep the leader's attention pointed at what only they can do.
i.
Operating Model
ii.
Enterprise Cadence
iii.
Strategic Enablement
How I Lead
Four operating beliefs
I keep returning to.
ii.
Decision rights, not org charts.
The truth of how a company moves lives in who decides — and how fast. The org chart is just the story we tell about it.
iii.
Enablement is a verb.
Real enablement removes friction from someone else's work. If a framework needs defending, it isn't enabling anything yet.
iv.
Coach the leader, not the slide.
The strategy is only as durable as the operator carrying it. Protect their attention; the rest tends to follow.
Belief
Authority you can talk to.
The work of large enterprise is mostly correct, often cold, and rarely human. I'd rather it be all three — rigorous about the operating model, restless about the cadence, and warm enough that the people inside it want to keep showing up. That's the practice. That's the whole brief.
Credentials
Twelve years.
One throughline.
From Agile coach to operating-model strategist — the work has always been the same: make ambition deliverable, and leave the team more capable than I found it.
Senior Manager, Enterprise Strategy & Delivery
Owning the Enterprise Operating Model that governs how 1,800+ technology teams plan, fund, and ship.
Director, Agile Practice & Center of Excellence
Built the practice that supported $150M+ of federal civilian modernization across CMS and the VA.
MBA · IT & Project Management
Graduate and undergraduate work focused on the operating side of technology delivery.
Doctorate in Business Administration
Translating the practice into the literature — and the literature back into the practice.
Certifications
Scaled Agile
SAFe® 6 Practice Consultant (SPC)
Scaled Agile
SAFe® 6 Release Train Engineer (RTE)
Scaled Agile
SAFe® 6 Scrum Master (SSM)
Scaled Agile
SAFe® 6 Practitioner (SP)
Scaled Agile
Achieving Responsible AI with SAFe®
Scaled Agile
SAFe® Remote Trainer
Project Management Institute
PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)®
Scrum.org
Professional Agile Leadership™ I (PAL I)
Scrum Alliance
Certified Scrum Professional — Product Owner (CSP-PO)
Scrum Alliance
Advanced Certified Scrum Product Owner (A-CSPO)
Scrum Alliance
Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
Silicon Valley Product Group
SVPG Product Masterclass (2025)
Speaking · Facilitation
The room is the work.
Keynotes, workshops, and executive offsites — the kind where the org actually leaves with a decision and a cadence, not a deck.
Recognition · Press
Moments that found print.
Awards, articles, and stages — captured by people other than me.
-
2023
Feature
Brandon Smith — A Connector
Be You · The Advocate -
2021Keynote
Agile Contracting in Government
Global SAFe Summit -
2021
Video · Culture
Voice: The Best Version of Me
CGI Federal -
2021
Talk · Allyship
Thoughts of Allyship in the Workplace
CGI Federal -
2018
Cohort
Leadership Lafayette, Class XXXI
Leadership Institute of Acadiana -
2018
Press
Brandon: Acadiana Role Model
Abbeville Meridional -
2017
Award
Acadiana's Top 20 Under 40
The Advertiser
Service · Community
Leadership is local, too.
I serve on two boards in my community — because the best operating models are the ones built next to the people they serve.
Leadership Institute of Acadiana
Immediate Past Chair, Board of Directors
A program graduating cohorts of emerging leaders across South Louisiana — teaching the practice of leading well, in public, alongside people who'll have to keep showing up to one another.
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The705
Member, Community Advisor Board
A community of professionals investing in Acadiana — its leadership pipeline, its civic energy, and the long arc of the place we've decided to build from.
Get in touch
Let's talk.
Whether it's a speaking inquiry, an advisory conversation, or just a hello — the inbox is open. I read everything; I reply to most things within a few days.
contact@itsbrandonsmith.com