Founder, Director of Operations, and Creative Director

Marie-Luise Smith

Marie-Luise Smith is Founder, Director of Operations, and Creative Director of Smith & Smith Global. She holds a German Bachelor of Science equivalent in Radiological Technology Sciences from LLAFMTA in Berlin, a federally regulated program, and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Walden University. Before founding SSG, she worked in tertiary-care hospitals, private practice, and in clinical research at Perceptive Informatics/Parexel (PI/P). At PI/P, she also was assigned to an imaging quality control role on a clinical trial directly conducted by and at Bayer. During her time in network marketing, she built and trained Germany’s largest independent consultant team for one of the biggest companies in the industry and, together with her team, created multi-million revenues.

Her education and professional background gave her a strong foundation in risk assessment, quality control, medical science, scientific reasoning and skepticism, research methodology, human behavior, and, ultimately, business acumen. That unique combination informs how SSG builds and runs brands, both operationally and creatively.

Marie-Luise remains engaged in continuous ongoing professional education across a large cross-section of topics. Currently, she is also considering a return to her Master of Science studies in Industrial/Organizational Psychology, which she paused for several years to care for her severely disabled mother.

In her private life, Marie-Luise has long loved travel, a curiosity first sparked by her father when she was young. She has visited every continent except Oceania.

Her love of non-fiction owes much to her brother, a neurologist and scientist, and she maintains a large private library at Cloudfall, her main residence overlooking an undisclosed mountain range, because she enjoys watching true crime series as well.

As a child, she promised her parents that one day she would own all the dogs in the world and spend every second of the day with them.

Adulthood introduced two minor inconveniences: owning all the dogs may be pathological, and becoming a velcro human requires the cash flow to support such a life. So she compromised: she and her husband built the life that lets her spend her days with the downsized pack version of her dream.

Marie-Luise is a member of:

Gesellschaft für

Phytotherapie e.V.

Academic Degrees

Bachelor of Science equivalent— Radiological Technology Sciences* LLAFMTA, Berlin, GermanyFederally regulated and certified program
Comprehensive three-year professional program with training across nuclear medicine, radiation therapy, and diagnostic radiology, including radiophysics, as the foundation of all three radiological branches.

Formal scientific training with an emphasis on anatomy, pathology, physiology, imaging-based diagnostics, radiation protection (the biological effects and regulatory safety framework), dosimetry, radiobiology, imaging, physics, photon interactions with matter, attenuation laws, detector physics, dose calculations, and clinical standards of evidence.

This background established early fluency in medical reasoning, risk assessment, and the interpretation of diagnostic data under real-world constraints, skills developed in a field where mistakes can expose people to excessive radiation.

Bachelor of Science — Psychology Walden University, regionally accredited

Scientific training in human behavior, cognition, decision-making, and research methodology. This educational background informs SSG’s guardian-centered approach, particularly in understanding compliance, bias, stress-driven choices, and the realities of navigating short and long-term care decisions.

Honorary mention:

Master of Science — Industrial / Organizational Psychology Walden University, regionally accredited

Paused the Degree to become her mother’s full-time caregiver. Currently, rather than returning to a traditional I/O career track, Marie-Luise redirected her overall systems and organizational training into building work at the intersection of human decision-making and the canine world.

Professional & Clinical Experience

  • Hospital settings, where interdisciplinary coordination, protocol adherence, diagnostic clarity, and real-time decision-making shaped her understanding of how complex systems operate under pressure

  • Private practice, with direct exposure to individualized care, client communication, patient variability, and outcome-driven decision-making

  • Clinical research environments, including work at Parexel/Perceptive Informatics, as well as an assignment to Bayer, involving project management, data interpretation, study design literacy, and critical evaluation of evidence quality and limitations.

This experience underpins SSG’s insistence on systems realism: understanding not just what should work, but what does work within biological, practical, commercial, cultural, and ethical constraints. Across SSG’s brand portfolio, this means translating knowledge into credible public-facing language, building trust without relying on evidence-based fog machines and treating science, care, design, and commerce as connected systems rather than isolated claims.

Our professional and clinical experience also informs our view of medicine, pharmaceuticals, wellness, and consumer-facing health industries as constructs with their own structural incentives, entities to be analyzed and questioned, not taken at face value.

  • Network Marketing: Marie-Luise also has substantial network-marketing and direct-sales experience, having reached Scentsy’s highest Independent Consultant rank within 2.5 years while building Germany’s largest independent consultant team from the United States. Her work included cross-market leadership, consultant mentorship, training systems, goal-setting, and multi-million-revenue generating team development across German-speaking and North American markets. That experience gives SSG and its brands an insider’s understanding of how product narratives, commercial incentives, community trust, belief-driven loyalty, and evidence language shape consumer decisions, brand trust, and market behavior.

Professional Certifications

  • Certified Professional Canine Nutritionist (CPCN) course: RACE -approved by the American Association of Veterinary State Boards (AAVSB)

    Formal certification focused on canine nutritional physiology, diet formulation, nutrient interactions, and condition-awareness. This credential complements, not replaces, Wolfried’s broader scientific and systems-based framework.

    Note: The certification program is in the natural canine nutrition space. The program provided a useful general overview of canine nutritional physiology, diet formulation, nutrient interactions, and the broader language and assumptions that shape this field. At the same time, Marie-Luise does not treat that curriculum as a final scientific authority. Some parts were educational; others made clear how often “evidence-based” is used as marketing language without meeting the standard. That was valuable in its own right: it further sharpened critical evaluation of the field, prompted ongoing, deeper literature reviews, and led to further continuing education. This credential, therefore, adds relevant background but does not define or replace Smith and Smith Global’s broader scientific and systems-based framework.

  • Phytotherapy & Mycotherapy for Animals (Ongoing) - Rolf-Schneider Akademie Staatlich zugelassenes, tierärztlich geprüftes Fernstudium (12 months)
    State-approved, veterinarian-audited distance learning program

    Advanced European training in evidence-based phytotherapy and mycotherapy, focused on pharmacologically active plant- and fungi-derived compounds, formulation principles, indications, contraindications, and system-level physiological integration.

    The Rolf-Schneider-Academy offers advanced training in monastic medicine and phytotherapy, which was developed in partnership with the Research Group Klostermedizin, established by medical historian Dr.Johannes Gottfried Mayer (University of Würzburg, Germany).

  • Canine Nutrition Consulting (scheduled start 2027) - Rolf-Schneider Akademie Staatlich zugelassenes, tierärztlich geprüftes Fernstudium
    State-approved, veterinarian-audited distance learning program

    Advanced German training in evidence-based canine nutrition.

Ongoing Education & Advanced Study

Marie-Luise treats education as an ongoing responsibility, not a milestone.
Ongoing and advanced coursework is chosen selectively within the SSG team, based on relevance and rigor.


Examples of attended coursework, provided by the following institutions:


Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST)

with particular focus on:

  • biochemical and metabolic pathways

  • enzymatic regulation and energetic trade-offs

  • nutrient interactions and inhibitory effects

  • systemic constraints affecting digestion, liver function, histamine metabolism, and inflammatory load.


University of Cambridge-Professional and Continuing Education
with particular focus on:

  • the neuropsychology of decision making


University of Florida
with particular focus on:

  • meat production systems & regulation

  • humane slaughter & animal welfare

  • inspection systems & food safety

  • meat quality, grading & fabrication

  • nutrition, byproducts & sustainability

*About German Standards

This brief overview is included to provide context about the German educational system behind part of our training background, not as self-congratulation.

Admission to the radiological sciences program required passing a rigorous two-hour, timed, in-person entrance examination covering core sciences, including mathematics and statistics, biology, physics, chemistry, and physiology.

Passing the examination did not guarantee entry. Approximately 55% of applicants passed, but only the top 15% were admitted.

Those admitted then entered a six-month probationary phase during which both academic and clinical performance were continuously evaluated. Roughly 80% of admitted students were eliminated during that period.

This structure reflects a broader feature of the German educational model in many regulated medical and technical professions: admission is selective, standards are enforced, and attrition is built into the system early. In that respect, it differs noticeably from the structure of many U.S. programs.

For more in-depth information about our founder, Marie-Luise, you can visit her LinkedIn Profile.