Ragnar Kruse is co-founder and CEO of Smaato Inc.

A leader in mobile advertising, Smaato has created a mobile ad network aggregation exchange with 20+ international ad networks and growing, serving more than 200 countries with a unprecedented fill rate of over 95%. Smaato's value proposition is its unique ability to aggregate multiple leading ad sales networks globally to maximize mobile advertising ARPU.

The company's core product - the open mobile advertising platform SOMA - connects ad sales networks, ad inventory owners (developers, publishers, and operators), and third-party ad technology providers. Smaato's key advantage is the platform's ability to dynamically optimize the targeted filling of ad requests in real time from its portfolio of ad sales networks to maximize the value of the publisher's ad space and enables advertising on mobile phones within applications and in mobile Internet sites with dynamic response and targeting functionality.

Smaato is an active member of leading mobile industry organizations such as the Mobile Marketing Association. Smaato received the Launch Silicon Valley Award as the company "Most Likely to Succeed" and the "Top 100 Private Company" award by AlwaysOn Media (2009 and 2007), and was an Andrew Seybold Choice awards finalist at CTIA 2008 for "Best Newcomer."

Founded in August 2005 by a team of experienced multinational executives, the privately held company is headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, with employees in the USA and Germany.

As a serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in IT, Ragnar understands the unique challenges in bringing new technologies to market. He has built up several companies from inception to market launch in both the U.S. and Europe.

At Intershop Communications, a leader in e-commerce software solutions, Ragnar was vice president of Sales and Marketing in San Francisco. During his tenure, Ragnar was instrumental in the company's growth and in ushering it through a successful IPO on Nasdaq and the "Neuer Markt" in 1998. More recently, Ragnar held key management positions at high-tech companies in the U.S. and Europe, including eCharge and Xtramind. Through his many years in IT, Ragnar maintains strong relationships with companies in the telecommunications and mobile sectors.

Ragnar started his career as an entrepreneur. In 1980, he founded IPT GmbH, a computer retail business that imported products into Germany from the USA and Taiwan. In 1987, he expanded his business by starting DTP Partner GmbH, a distribution company in Hamburg. DTP Partner was the exclusive distributor of several desktop publishing solutions, such as Corel, and was instrumental in establishing international distribution agreements with American and Taiwanese companies.

Ragnar studied law at the universities of Hamburg and Munich, Germany. He loves traveling, the opera, and sports, especially basketball.