Author(s)
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Ryan Smith
Co-founder and CEO, Qualtrics
Ryan Smith co-founded Qualtrics in 2002 with his father and brother. As CEO, he has grown the company from a basement startup to one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the world. In 2019, SAP acquired Qualtrics for $8B making Qualtrics the largest private enterprise software acquisition of all time. Qualtrics has more than 10,000 customers including 75 percent of the Fortune 100, and 99 of the top 100 business schools. Qualtrics was previously backed by Accel, Sequoia, and Insight Venture Partners. Ryan was named to Fortune’s 2016 40 Under 40, a list of the most powerful, influential, and successful young people in business, and was listed as one of Forbes’ “America’s Most Promising CEOs Under 35” in 2013. He is a frequent contributor to Fortune Magazine and has been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Inc., The New York Times, TechCrunch and USA Today, and has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and FOX Business. Ryan is a graduate of Brigham Young University and is a frequent guest lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School, and Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Business. Ryan is married to his college sweetheart and together they are the parents of 5 children.