Jimmy Smith was born in Guyana, in the Caribbean, where he was raised on a small mixed crop-and-livestock farm; Smith holds dual nationalities with Canada. He was appointed director general of ILRI in April 2011. Before joining ILRI, he was based at the headquarters of the World Bank, in Washington, DC, where he served for five years, leading the Bank’s Global Livestock Portfolio. Previously, Smith held senior positions at the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) (2001–2006). Earlier in his career, Smith had worked at ILRI and its predecessor, the International Livestock Centre for Africa (ILCA) (1991–2001). At ILCA and then ILRI, Smith was the institute’s regional representative for West Africa, where he led development of integrated research promoting smallholder livelihoods through animal agriculture and built effective partnerships among stakeholders in the region. At ILRI, Smith spent three years leading the ILRI-led Systemwide Livestock Programme of the CGIAR, an association of 10 CGIAR centres working on issues at the crop-livestock interface. Before his decade of work at ILCA/ILRI, Smith held senior positions in the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) (1986–1991), where he embarked on his career supporting international livestock for development. Smith is a graduate of the University of Illinois, at Urban-Champaign, USA, where he completed in PhD in animal sciences.