Early Life and Education
Ryan Smith was born in Eugene, Oregon, on June 28, 1978. His father was a university professor, and his mother holds a Ph.D. in information systems. Smith attended Brigham Young University's Marriott School of Business, where he co-founded Qualtrics with his father and brother while still a student. He initially dropped out during his junior year to focus on Qualtrics but later returned and completed his degree in 2016.
Rise to Success
Smith co-founded Qualtrics in 2002, with the goal of making academic research tools more accessible via the internet. The company grew rapidly, expanding into corporate enterprise feedback, including employee engagement, customer experience, and product research. In 2018, SAP acquired Qualtrics for $8 billion. Smith remained as CEO. In January 2021, SAP spun Qualtrics out as a stand-alone public company. Ryan purchased $120 million of the stock.
Key Business Strategies
Qualtrics focused on making sophisticated research simple for the academic market. The company developed focused solutions consisting of use case-specific capabilities, content, dashboards, and workflow integration built on top of the base research and analytics engine. In 2017, Qualtrics launched the Qualtrics XM™ Platform. In October 2020, Smith purchased a majority stake in the Utah Jazz NBA team for $1.66 billion.
Philanthropy
Ryan Smith co-founded 5 For The Fight Foundation, a global campaign inviting everyone to donate $5 to cancer research. He has also partnered with the Utah Jazz to raise $25 million for cancer research.