Evan Smith

Co-founder, The Texas Tribune
Senior Advisor, Emerson Collective

Evan Smith is a senior advisor at Emerson Collective, working closely with journalists and funders around the country to support local news. He’s also a professor of practice at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. He previously spent more than thirteen years at The Texas Tribune, which he co-founded and led as CEO, and nearly eighteen years at Texas Monthly, including nine years as editor in chief and a year as president. Evan is the host of “Overheard with Evan Smith,” a weekly half-hour interview program that airs on PBS stations from coast to coast. He serves on the boards of St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, the Austin Film Society, and the LBJ Foundation. A native of New York, he’s a graduate of Hamilton College, which awarded him an honorary degree in 2023, and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, which inducted him into its Hall of Achievement in 2006.