Sales Executives

Sales & Marketing Executives International (SMEI) is a worldwide organization dedicated to ethical standards, continuing professional development, knowledge sharing, mentoring students and advancing free enterprise. Founded in 1935 in the U.S. as the National Federation of Sales Executives, the organization grew to become the largest in the world for sales and marketing managers by the late 1940s.
In the late 1880s, sales and marketing was not popularly considered to be an attractive career or a profession. But many in the business, seeing the need for professional recognition based on sound standards and ethical practices, created Sales Managers’ Clubs. First started in the 1880s in North America, they gradually spread throughout Europe, Australian, South American and the Pacific Rim.
From them emerged SMEI. In 1935, IBM Founder Thomas Watson, Sr.; Raymond Bill, founder of Sales and Marketing Management Magazine, and other visionaries invited the presidents of many Sales Managers’ Clubs to New York City to discuss forming a network of sales and marketing executives. The result was the National Federation of Sales Executives, the first of several names for SMEI.
The federation grew quickly, especially after World War II when member CEOs dedicated it to helping Europe and other war-battered areas rebuild their economies. By the late 1940s, the association included more than 40 countries and was the largest in the world for sales and marketing managers. In 1949 it became National Sales Executives (NSE)-International and in 1961 became SMEI.