Fencing Champion Turned Entrepreneur Shares Business Insights with St. John’s Students

The opportunity to learn from the experiences of an Olympic medalist and fencing Hall of Famer turned entrepreneur drew a roomful of St. John’s University students, faculty, and administrators to the Venture & Innovation Center (VIC) at The Peter J. Tobin College of Business on February 20.

Alumnus Keeth Smart ’01TCB, who won a silver medal in the men’s team sabre fencing competition at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, discussed the parallels between his athletic and business careers in a lecture titled “Beyond the Foil.” Mr. Smart earned a bachelor’s degree in Finance from St. John’s and is now the Senior Vice President of Chelsea Piers Fitness, a series of high-end fitness facilities he helped to launch in New York City and Connecticut.

Mr. Smart, who was elected to the St. John’s Athletics Hall of Fame in 2013 and the USA Fencing Hall of Fame in 2014, discussed how lessons learned over three Olympic appearances and two National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships honed his entrepreneurial instincts. 

“In 2008, I was competing for the silver medal as part of the USA team,” Mr. Smart recalled. “The final match was against Stanislav Pozdnyakov, a legendary fencer from Russia. Whoever scored the next point would win the match for his team. I retreated on the last point instead of going forward. No one does that in fencing, it is counterintuitive.”

“But by doing that I probably shocked him,” Mr. Smart continued. “I scored the last point, and we won. In that moment, I was focused on sticking to the game plan. In sports and in life, when you have a plan you believe in, stick to it.”

The VIC, which opened in January 2024, is the latest initiative in the University’s commitment to entrepreneurship, business development, and experiential learning. Led by Director James M. Kinsley, M.B.A., Professor of Management, Entrepreneurship, Consulting, and Operations (MECO) at Tobin, it provides entrepreneurs inside and outside of St. John’s with business resources and product-development support, including creation space, marketing strategies, and even funding.

It also brings entrepreneurs to the Queens, NY, campus to share their insights with the St. John’s community. Mr. Smart appeared two days before the Johnny’s Innovation Challenge, a business development competition produced by the VIC and The Lesley H. and William L. Collins College of Professional Studies.     

Entrepreneurial Instincts Drawn from a St. John’s Sports Background 

Mr. Smart, 46, was born in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, NY, an area not known for producing Olympic-caliber fencers. Nevertheless, he and sister Erinn Smart caught the bug early. Erinn also won a silver medal in 2008, in the women’s team foil competition.

Two years after his Olympic experience, Mr. Smart began an entrepreneurial journey that would take him to Mountain View, CA, with Google and even onto the CNBC business reality show Shark Tank, where he pitched an idea for Physiclo, a brand of resistance wear designed to enhance fitness results. Mr. Smart has since moved on from the company.

Mr. Smart told the St. John’s audience that of all the business lessons he learned, the most important might be the value of networking. It is how he landed his position at Chelsea Piers in November 2017.

“So much of success is about relationship building,” he said. “In the New York startup scene, you can meet the same people repeatedly. At that time in my life, I had an infant daughter and wanted something more stable. I just started going back to my network of who knows who and what is going on.”

“I saw an ad from Chelsea Piers,” Mr. Smart continued. “They were looking for someone with an entrepreneurial background. I asked someone I respected about it and was told I should talk with them.” 

In the years since, Mr. Smart has helped to open five Chelsea Piers facilities, which compete in the luxury fitness space alongside rivals Equinox and Solace New York. He initially supervised the acquisition of new spaces, but he is more involved in their design these days. Another new facility will soon open in Long Island City, not far from the St. John’s campus.

Mr. Smart said providing a unique experience is as important as ever for would-be entrepreneurs, especially those in service industries. “When people come into a Chelsea Piers Fitness facility, I want everyone to feel as if they have never been in a fitness club like this before,” he said. “If people are not talking about their fitness club at Sunday brunch, then we have a lot of work to do.”

Keeth Smart’s Fencing Legacy Was Established at St. John’s

Only a handful of students said they had visited one of Mr. Smart’s facilities. Many, however, were aware of his legacy as one of the greatest American-born fencers ever. Mr. Smart won the NCAA men’s individual sabre title in 1997 and 1999; and in 2001 he led the Red Storm men’s team to the national championship. In 2003, he became the first American man to earn the sport’s top ranking in sabre.

Among the students eager to hear from Mr. Smart was fourth-year Economics student Yasir Shaikh, an aspiring entrepreneur who runs an e-commerce business. “You listen to Mr. Smart speak, and you want to see how you can relate that to your own life,” Yasir said. “How can you grow yourself and your business? He has a lot of experience.”

Mr. Smart said this was his first visit to the St. John’s campus in about a decade. The trip enabled him to reunite with longtime Red Storm fencing Coach Yuri Gelman and former Red Storm standout Fares Ferjani ’22TCB, ’23MBA, who won a silver medal for Tunisia in men’s individual sabre at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“It was great to see him here,” Coach Gelman said. “He was a great athlete and fencer, but is an even better person, and there is so much students can learn from him.”

“He is a great role model,” Mr. Ferjani added.