Born in Cambridge, Rachel Smith-Spencer moved to Stratford in 2003 to accept the position of Senior Director of Advancement at the Stratford Festival, a role she held for 22 seasons, retiring in April 2025. During her tenure, she led a team that raised over $14M annually to support the Festival's key operations, helped to build the endowment fund from $24M to over $100M, and secured over $100M to build the new Tom Patterson Theatre.

Her career was spent in not-for-profit marketing and development positions with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Toronto Symphony and the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. A graduate in the B.A. and M.A programs in the English department at the University of Waterloo, Rachel has taught specialty classes in marketing and fundraising with a focus on not-for-profit arts for several organizations. She has held board positions with the KWS, the Cambridge Family Crisis Shelter and her condominium corporation.