Haley Morgan Smith is a Good Neighbor Architect who turns the in-between into belonging.

Born biracial in Rockmart, Georgia, in the hills of Appalachia, Haley grew up learning to navigate spaces that did not always know where to place her. Her family and community taught her to work with grit and grace and to believe that difference did not have to create distance. It could become a bridge.

That lesson has shaped her life and leadership: bringing together people who might not naturally find themselves at the same table and helping them discover what they can build together.

At fifteen, Haley went from leading worship in a rural church of seventy people to standing on stage each week at North Point Community Church, then one of the fastest-growing congregations in the country. She spent her early years traveling with camps and conferences, learning how to hold the attention of thousands with a guitar and a story. Those experiences gave her an early understanding of the power of story and relationships to bring people together.

Her work expanded into nonprofit and community leadership at The Rethink Group (ORANGE), where she served as Rural Strategy Director and co-founded For Our Neighbors, an initiative that brought churches, schools, civic leaders, young people, and neighbors together around the future of their communities. She also helped design curriculum adopted by more than 6,000 churches and schools nationwide.

Much of that work happened in small towns like the one that raised her. In one community where a Confederate flag had long flown over city hall, Haley worked alongside young people and community leaders as years of relationship-building eventually culminated in its voluntary removal. It reinforced something she had already come to believe: lasting change is rarely about getting everyone to agree. It is about building enough trust for people to move forward together.

Haley carried that experience into higher education as the inaugural Chief Belonging and Community Engagement Officer at Berry College, a cabinet-level role shaping the institution's approach to belonging, community engagement, and access. She created the Berry College Good Neighbor Framework, directed more than 42,000 hours of student service annually, representing approximately $1.46 million in local impact, stewarded multimillion-dollar endowments, and led scholarship and service programs designed to widen educational opportunity. She also helped Berry secure the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification.

Haley's longstanding relationship with The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change has continued through several chapters of her career. She brought that relationship into her work at Berry, helping establish a formal partnership between the institutions. Today, she serves as a strategic partner to the King Center, supporting strategic planning and partnership development.

After years of advancing this work across communities, nonprofits, and higher education, Haley brought the same philosophy into the corporate world, where decisions about infrastructure, investment, and growth directly shape the places people call home.

Today, Haley serves as U.S. Leader for Community Impact & Partnerships at GHD and U.S. Leader for the GHD Foundation. GHD is a global, employee-owned professional services company with more than 12,000 people and a presence across five continents, bringing together engineering, architecture, environmental, advisory, digital, and construction expertise across water, energy, transportation, and the built environment.

In these national leadership roles, Haley shapes GHD’s U.S. approach to community impact and partnerships and leads the Foundation’s U.S. strategy and partnerships. Her portfolio spans education and opportunity, community resilience, and civic engagement, bringing together philanthropic investment, civic and nonprofit partnerships, employee engagement, and relationships with clients and communities.

Her approach begins with understanding what matters locally, recognizing the people and organizations already doing the work, and identifying where GHD's people, expertise, relationships, and resources can contribute. At the center of that work is a question that has followed Haley throughout her career:

What does it mean to truly be a good neighbor?

For Haley, community impact and business health are part of the same ecosystem. Strong communities, trusted relationships, engaged employees, thoughtful investment, and a healthy business reinforce one another, creating greater capacity for communities and businesses to thrive together.

Haley's commitment to place extends into civic leadership. She was selected for Leadership Georgia, Class of 2026, is an alumna of Leadership Rome, and has also been selected for Leadership North Fulton. Over the course of her career, she has shared stages and collaborated with nationally recognized leaders, including Dr. Bernice A. King, Andy Stanley, and Ruby Bridges. Her civic leadership has been recognized with the Diamond Award for exceptional leadership in civic engagement and the Exceptional 7 Award, recognizing outstanding professionals under 40.

Haley holds a master's degree in Transformational Leadership from Eastern Mennonite University, with a focus on restorative justice and conflict transformation, and a bachelor's degree in Communications from Shorter College. Her additional training includes Kingian Nonviolence, restorative justice in higher education, trauma and resiliency, and mentoring strategy.

Music has remained a thread throughout Haley's life. A songwriter and performer, she was signed to a major record label in her twenties and toured internationally. She continues to make music with longtime collaborator Austen Earp through Kindred Fire, drawing from Appalachian roots and a mix of folk, rock, and soul.

Across every chapter, Haley’s work has been rooted in a simple belief: when we know our neighbors, we can build something better together.