Accenture
Managing Director, New York Public Service Practice
Steve Hurst leads Accenture’s New York City government practice. In this role, he is responsible for Accenture’s work with the city government of New York, the various authorities (transportation, housing, ports), the downstate universities and other downstate public sector organizations.
Accenture’s work with the City currently includes
- the on-going expansion of the 3-1-1 system to include an executive analytic reporting capability and further integration between front-office and back-office functions
- the roll-out of an enterprise human resources capability and the creation of a centralized HR function
- an enterprise human services capability
- streamlined, document management capability for the Department of Buildings
- various financial and back office improvement projects for Columbia University, New York University and Nassau County.
Steve was the lead executive on the initial launch of the 3-1-1 program and also led Accenture’s e-Government work for the City which established their award winning portal NYC.gov.
Steve graduated from Oxford University in England with an Honours degree in Chemistry. He has a Masters degree in Information Technology from Queen Mary College, London.
Program Manager, Research Center for Leadership in Action
Associate Professor, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, NYU
Dennis C. Smith, Associate Professor of Public Policy, also serves as the Program Manager for the Research Center for Leadership in Action. Professor Smith earned his Ph.D. in political science from Indiana University. In January, 2006, he was appointed Professor in Residence in the New York State Assembly Internship Program. Professor Smith has conducted research on the performance management of public and nonprofit agencies, and has written on the problems of measuring the success of reforms in public sector organizations. He has also studied the non-emergency use of New York City's ambulance service (EMS) and has written on strategies for managing the demand for emergency services. Professor Smith's work has been published in several journals, including Public Administration Review, Urban Affairs Quarterly, Public Administration and Development, and City Journal. His analysis of Compstat, written with former NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, appeared in Forsythe, ed., Quicker, Better, Cheaper? Managing Performance in American Government (2001). His "Managing CIVPOL: The Potential of Performance Management in International Public Service" is a chapter in Dijkzeul and Beigbeder, ed., Rethinking International Organizations: Pathology and Promise (2003).
Since 1985, Professor Smith has worked with the public management faculty of Escuela Superior de Administracion y Direccion de Empresas (ESADE) on management development projects in Spain. He has directed Policy Analysis in Europe, co-sponsored by Ecol– National–des travaux Publics de l'Etat and Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). He worked with the Graduate School of International Studies at Korea University and Seoul National University's Graduate School of Public Administration.
He is a member of the editorial board of two public policy journals and of the board of the nonprofit, children's musical theater company, TADA!
A graduate of NYU School of Law, Dean Schall joined the Wagner School faculty in 1992. Dean Schall's academic work focuses on leadership, innovation and organizational development. She is responsible for bringing two important and innovative projects to NYU Wagner. With Wagner Professor Sonia Ospina, she brought and managed a partnership with the Ford Foundation and the Advocacy Institute on Leadership for a Changing World, an awards program for social change leaders. This work has developed into the establishment of a new research center at NYU Wagner, The Research Center for Leadership in Action, supported by the Ford Foundation. In addition, Dean Schall brought and managed the Wagner School's partnership with the Anne E. Casey Foundation's Children and Family Fellowship, a year-long fulltime program geared to increasing the capacity of mid-career professionals to lead transformational change in the conditions facing poor children and families.
Prior to joining NYU Wagner, Dean Schall built a reputation as a thoughtful and effective leader of change. From 1983 to 1990, she was commissioner of the NYC Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). Under her leadership the Department of Juvenile Justice won national recognition for innovative programming and excellent management and was selected by Harvard University and the Ford Foundation for their prestigious Innovations Award. Schall's and DJJ's accomplishments were highlighted in the 1989 PBS documentary "Excellence in the Public Sector with Tom Peters."
Dean Schall has extensive experience in nonprofit management and governance. She served as president of the National Center for Health Education from 1990 to 1992. She has been an active board member of University Settlement House since 1973 and served as Board President from 1977 to 1986 With Judith Kaye, New York State's Chief Judge, she co-chaired the Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice from 1991 to 1999. In 1995, she was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. She is also a past president of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.
Dean Schall is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2001 NYU Distinguished Teaching Medal, the 1997 Public Service Award from the NYU School of Law Alumni Association, the 1990 Osborne Medal given by the Osborne and Correctional Associations for achievement in criminal justice and the 1989 Florence E. Allen Award for exceptional attainment in the law given by the women's Bar Association and NYU Law School.
Dean Schall continues to teach Reflective Practice, a course she created for the Wagner School that helps students learn to build theories about their own practice.