Founded in 1919, the Smith School of Business is home to the oldest business degree program in Canada. Queen’s launched the first business degree program in the country that year, the Bachelor of Commerce, which became the genesis of what is now Smith School of Business. The school sits within Queen’s University, one of Canada’s oldest and most selective universities, with an academic tradition dating back to 1841. Smith is best known internationally for its 12-month Full-time MBA, its team-based learning model, and career outcomes that consistently lead the country.
Business education at Queen’s began in 1914 with banking courses launched alongside the Canadian Banking Association. In 1921, the university began offering Chartered Accountant extension courses, making Queen’s the exclusive provider of CA education in Ontario. In 1937, the Queen’s Board of Trustees voted to create a separate School of Commerce and Business Administration. The MBA program launched in 1960, and Queen’s School of Business became its own faculty in 1963 under first dean Lawrence MacPherson. The school earned AACSB accreditation in 1998, the first program in Ontario to do so.
On October 1, 2015, the school was renamed the Stephen J.R. Smith School of Business in recognition of a $50 million donation from Stephen J.R. Smith, a 1972 graduate of Queen’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. The gift was the largest ever made to a Canadian business school and grew the school’s endowment from $54 million to $104 million. Smith is the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of First National Financial Corporation, Canada’s largest non-bank lender of residential and commercial mortgages.
Smith today enrolls roughly 3,000 students across its undergraduate, graduate, and executive programs. The school is fully accredited by both the AACSB in the United States and EQUIS in Europe. Smith has also ranked 1st nationally and 38th globally for the number of graduates serving as CEOs of Fortune Global 500 corporations.
Smith School of Business Program Overview
The Smith Full-time MBA is a 12-month program based in Kingston, Ontario, built around a team-based learning model that mirrors the modern workplace. The program opens with roughly six months of business fundamentals paired with an Integrated Team Project, where students work directly with small and medium-sized enterprises. Every student is assigned to a team of six or seven classmates with a dedicated team room.
Coaching is the second pillar of the program. Students work with a Team Coach, a Career Coach, an Executive Coach, and a Lifestyle Coach during the year. After the foundational term, students choose a specialization from Consulting, Digital Transformation, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Finance, Management Analytics, or Marketing and Sales. The program commences in January, which puts graduates in the job market ahead of most North American MBA classes.
| School Rank (Financial Times Global MBA 2026) | #92 globally, one of five Canadian programs in the top 100 |
| Course Duration | 12 months, January start |
| Average GMAT | 660 median (most recently reported) |
| GMAT Range | Not published by the school |
| Approx. Class Size | 63 to 90 |
| Avg. Work Experience | 4 years |
| Tuition Cost | CAD $85,201 domestic (approx. USD $61,600), CAD $110,000 international (approx. USD $79,530), all-inclusive program fee |
| Average Age of Student | 28 |
| Average Base Salary | CAD $104,496 (approx. USD $75,551) |
| Average Management Consulting Salary | CAD $111,688 (approx. USD $80,750) |
| % Employed After 3 Months | 75% |
| Locations | Kingston, Toronto, Dubai |
Degrees Offered
Smith awards the following degrees and diplomas:
- Bachelor of Commerce (BCom)
- Master of Business Administration (MBA)
- Executive MBA (EMBA)
- Accelerated MBA (AMBA)
- Master of Science in Management (MSc)
- Master of Finance (MFin)
- Master of International Business (MIB)
- Master of Management Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MMIE)
- Master of Management in Artificial Intelligence (MMAI)
- Master of Management Analytics (MMA)
- Master of Digital Product Management (MDPM)
- PhD in Management
- Graduate Diploma in Business (GDB)
- Graduate Diploma in Accounting (GDA)
Specialty Programs:
- Executive MBA Americas, delivered in partnership with the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University
- Smith-Peking Double Degree, delivered with the Guanghua School of Management at Peking University
- Accelerated MBA for business graduates
- Executive MBA National program
- Executive Education programs, including at the Dubai campus
What Makes Smith School Of Business Unique?
The Full-time MBA runs a focused set of student clubs, several of which map directly to recruiting. The Consulting Club exists to help students land consulting jobs, and its executive team built a platform for members to access preparation material and find partners for case interview practice. The club also runs interactive case sessions, benchmarking sessions, and guest speaker events with industry specialists. Other clubs include the AI in Business Club, the Smith Finance Club, the Healthcare Club, the Smith Impact Club, and the Women in Leadership Club.
The Smith Finance Club hosts speaker series events and fireside chats with finance executives, and recently launched the school’s first annual M&A Competition with judges drawn from leading Canadian investment banks and corporate advisory firms. Students also elect a Student Executive Council that runs external relations, culture, wellness, and social programming for the class.
Smith is a small school by design. The faculty numbers roughly 155 academic staff serving about 1,950 undergraduates, 1,163 postgraduates, and 52 doctoral students. In one recent academic year, Smith faculty published 44 articles in academic journals, 14 of them in the Financial Times list of 50 top-tier journals.
What Is The Smith School Of Business Campus Like?
Most business classes are held in Goodes Hall, which opened in 2002 and is named in honour of the family of Melvin Goodes, a Commerce ’57 alumnus and former chairman and CEO of Warner-Lambert. A major expansion completed in September 2012 added 75,000 square feet, bringing the building to 188,000 square feet with new classrooms, breakout rooms, and 51 additional faculty offices. The MBA class has its own section of the building, with the administration office, career centre, and professor offices in the same space.
Kingston is a small city on Lake Ontario, positioned between Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa. Housing costs in Kingston run roughly $800 to $1,200 CAD per month, and the school estimates total cost of living at $18,000 to $20,000 CAD per year. Most students live within a ten minute walk of campus.
Smith also operates outside Kingston. SmithToronto occupies the entire 30th floor of Simcoe Place at 200 Front Street West in downtown Toronto, with 25,000 square feet of classrooms, meeting rooms, and event space, and runs programs including the Master of Finance, Master of Management Analytics, and Master of Management in Artificial Intelligence. The school opened its first foreign campus in Dubai at the DIFC in 2007, which primarily hosts executive development programs.
Notable Alumni
Smith alumni lead major Canadian financial institutions, global pharmaceutical companies, and high-growth startups. Here is a list of Smith School of Business notable alumni:
- Gordon Nixon, former CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada
- Earle McLaughlin, former president of the Royal Bank of Canada
- Melvin Goodes, former CEO of Warner-Lambert
- Chris Viehbacher, former CEO of Sanofi and former chairman of Genzyme
- Michele Romanow, co-founder of Clearco and a Dragon on CBC's Dragons' Den
- Kimbal Musk, co-founder of Zip2 and Big Green
- Mary Ann Turcke, former COO of the National Football League and former president of Bell Media
- John Stackhouse, Senior Vice President in the Office of the CEO at RBC and former Editor-in-Chief of The Globe and Mail
- Douglas Peters, former Chief Economist of Toronto-Dominion Bank and former Secretary of State
- Nik Nanos, founder of Nanos Research
- Kelly McCrimmon, General Manager of the Vegas Golden Knights
- Neil Pasricha, bestselling author and public speaker
- Stephen J.R. Smith, chairman and CEO of First National Financial Corp., namesake of the school and a Queen's engineering graduate
Smith School Of Business Employment Report
According to the Smith MBA Class of 2025 Employment Report, 75% of the class accepted an offer within three months of graduation, rising to 82% within six months. The class posted an average base salary of $104,496 CAD, an 85% increase over pre-MBA earnings, with average total compensation of $113,490 CAD. That works out to roughly $75,551 USD in base salary and $82,053 USD in total compensation. Graduates also received an average signing bonus of $10,167 CAD.
Consulting accounted for 15% of accepted offers by industry and 17% by function, making it the second largest destination behind financial services at 35%. Consulting roles paid an average base of $111,688 CAD by industry and $117,767 CAD by function, the second highest of any function in the class. In USD terms, that is approximately $80,750 and $85,146 respectively.
Firms that have recruited or engaged with Smith MBA students include McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company, BCG, Deloitte, EY-Parthenon, KPMG, PwC, Accenture, Kearney, Oliver Wyman, Alvarez & Marsal, and Simon-Kucher & Partners. Half of all offers came through school-facilitated channels, including job postings, alumni networking, and referrals from Smith staff and classmates. Smith has been ranked No. 1 in Canada by the Financial Times for career services for six consecutive years, along with first in the country for salary increase, career progress, and value for money.
To understand how consulting salaries at Smith compare to offers across the broader market, see the Consulting Salaries Report. If you’re targeting a consulting offer out of Smith, start with the Case Interview Guide.