Kelly Smith is the VP Digital for Starbucks China and is a member of the Starbucks China senior leadership team. Kelly leads Starbucks core digital businesses, including mobile and mobile payments, web, e-commerce and future consumer experiences. In addition, Kelly plays a key role in critical system architectures for digital My Starbucks Rewards and digital gifting.

A hands-on technologist and designer, Kelly is the founder of 5 venture-backed technology start-ups and is an active entrepreneur who incubates and invests in early-stage companies. Kelly has been actively working in the internet sector since it’s inception. He was an early employee of RealNetworks, who developed the technologies to enable delivery of audio and video on the internet. He started his career marketing the very first commercial version of a web browser based on the initial Mosaic browser source code.

Kelly is from Seattle but has lived in 38 cities across North America, Europe and Asia. He enjoys researching development and design trends and is a painter, amateur photographer and restorer of old cars in his spare time.