Ragnar Kruse is the CEO and co-founder of Smaato. Since 2005, he has built Smaato into the world’s largest independent mobile ad exchange, with over 90,000 publishers and app developers and more than 450 demand partners delivering ads to over one billion unique mobile users per month around the world. He has raised USD 50 million from prestigious investors such as Aeris Capital, EDBI Singapore, Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and business angels.

As a serial entrepreneur with more than 30 years’ experience in IT, Mr Kruse understands the unique challenges in bringing new technologies to market. He has built up several companies from inception to market launch in the US and Europe.

At Intershop Communications, a leader in e-commerce software solutions, Mr Kruse was VP of Sales and Marketing in San Francisco. During his tenure, he was instrumental in the company’s growth, ushering it through a successful IPO on NASDAQ and the ‘Neuer Markt’ in 1998, while helping the company to grow from five employees to more than 1,000.