Former Evernote, Telefónica and Apple veteran Ian Small has become the new CEO of IoT connectivity firm Blues.

Small, who has more than 30 years of technology-industry experience, brings deep operational expertise and a track record of scaling companies from early-stage through public-market maturity.

Small is widely recognised as an end-to-end operator with the ability to drive growth across every stage of the business lifecycle. He brings a reputation for listening to customers and turning their needs into innovation. Small’s experience spans a broad range of technology companies, from nimble start-ups to large-scale public enterprises, making him suited to guide Blues through its next phase of expansion.

“My early conversations with customers proved to be incredibly inspiring, ultimately cementing my decision to join Blues,” said Small. “On every call, customers shared their excitement about driving revenue or profitability with their new intelligent services, all made possible by tapping the data previously locked inside their products.”

The announcement follows Blues’ recent closing of $25m in additional funding led by Sequoia Capital (iotm2mcouncil.org/iot-library/news/iot-newsdesk/blues-closes-25m-funding-round) and fuelled by strong demand from large enterprises, many of whom are expanding their use of Blues as they scale their businesses.

“I founded Blues because of a deeply held belief that all the world’s physical products would become connected and intelligent,” said Ray Ozzie, founder and executive chair of Blues (blues.com). “Since 2020 we’ve been helping enterprises to do just that, transforming their businesses from products to intelligent services. We’ve reached a phase where our growth calls for a strong operational leader who can help us unlock our full potential by scaling the business. I look forward to working closely with Ian to take Blues to the next level.”

Blues is empowering established industries to reinvent themselves through intelligent, cloud-connected products, while also enabling emerging businesses to create entirely new markets. From industrial manufacturing and logistics to the energy sector, Blues addresses complex problems of IoT connectivity, making it simple and secure to bring any physical product online.

“Blues makes it dramatically easier and more affordable to derive actionable insights from physical products, accelerating the time to market for new services,” said Small. “We’re driving a long-overdue platform shift by putting these capabilities within reach of every product maker, not just those with big R&D budgets. I’m excited to help Ray, the team, our customers and partners accelerate the shift.”

Small has most recently been CEO of Evernote (2018-2023), global chief data officer at Telefónica (2013-2016), and currently serves on the board of directors of Lumentum, a manufacturer of optical and photonic products, and Snapdocs, a digital mortgage closing provider. He also serves as an advisor to Squint, which provides a manufacturing intelligence platform to Fortune 500 enterprises, and has previously served as an advisor to Loon, a graduate of Google’s X Labs, as well as to Alpha, Telefónica’s long-term innovation and moonshot unit.

Small began his Silicon Valley career in 1989 as a research scientist and senior engineer at Apple, where he led several product and research teams within the human interface group and was responsible for engineering management and product release of QuickTime VR.

“I think back to my first job in Silicon Valley at Apple, where one of the rallying cries was changing the world one person at a time,” said Small. “Now that I’m here at Blues, I’m certainly happy to still be changing the world. More than that, I’m incredibly energised by the opportunity to work with you all to help you transform your products, develop new intelligent services, disrupt your industries and, together, change the world, one product at a time.”

Small earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering science and his master’s degree in computer science from the University of Toronto, and is a holder of nine US patents.

“From the outside, Blues may look like a technology company, but in reality Blues is a transformation machine,” said Small. “Each customer is using Blues to transform their product category, their line of business, perhaps their entire industry, tapping our knowledge to develop new services, integrating our technology to accelerate their future, leveraging our expertise to navigate their path to production, and, ultimately, delivering real, measurable business results.”

He said he saw many customers bringing Blues-equipped products to market for the first time, completing their transformation journey from idea to impact.

“I see those of you working from prototype stage to production pilot, advancing your transformation journey from hypothesis to proof point,” he said. “I look forward to working with each of you to ensure your pilot is delivering the value that you expect, and to help you navigate that next big step to product launch. And I see some of you just starting your journey. Blues is here to help you get your ideas off the whiteboard and into the market, faster and more cost-effectively than you think possible.”