Mrs Smiley succeeds Mr Michael Chant, who relinquished the post in October after serving for six years.
A graduate of Sydney University and the Sydney Institute for Education, Mrs Smiley taught as a secondary teacher in Broken Hill for five years from 1986, before moving to Clare in SA.
Since 2003 she has been the Manager for Corporate Services for the Adelaide Festival Centre. She has also served as Executive Officer and as Senior Consultant for Policy and Programming for the Training and Development Unit of the Department for Education, Training and Employment.
Commenting on her new post, Mrs Smiley said: 'I am looking forward to building bridges to people â€" developing existing relationships and growing new ones. I will be working to make Bible Society SA known and accessible to all sectors of the Christian community, and to all age groups, as a support to the Christian church in all its facets.'
She said she hopes to find and access tools such as new IT technology to better reach audiences and further the Bible Society's goal of making the Bible available and accessible to people in Australia and overseas.
Quoting the well-known image of either giving a hungry person a fish, or teaching that person how to fish, she said: 'I see the role of the Bible Society as helping to make 'the Bread of Life' available to provide for people's spiritual hunger.'