Stina Ehrensvärd is a Swedish-American entrepreneur, innovator and industrial designer. She is the founder and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of Yubico and co-inventor of the

YubiKey The YubiKey is a hardware authentication device manufactured by Yubico to protect access to computers, networks, and online services that supports one-time passwords (OTP), public-key cryptography, and authentication, and the Universal 2nd Fact ...

authentication device.

Biography

Ehrensvärd was born in the United States. Her father, who was an architect like her mother, spent a year at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, undertaking research on urban planning and computer graphics. The following year, the family moved back to

Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...

, Sweden, where she grew up with three siblings. She went on to study

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...

at the

Konstfack Konstfack, or University of Arts, Crafts and Design, is a university college for higher education in the area of art, crafts and design in Stockholm, Sweden. History Konstfack has had several different names since it was founded in 1844 by the e ...

University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

. It was around this time that she met her husband-to-be Jakob Ehrensvärd, an electronics enthusiast. They now have three children. The two began collaborating on a series of innovations combining their design and computing talents. Their first significant joint development was Cypak, an intelligent pharmaceutical packaging system that did not take off. In 2007, the couple founded

Yubico The YubiKey is a hardware authentication device manufactured by Yubico to protect access to computers, networks, and online services that supports one-time passwords (OTP), public-key cryptography, and authentication, and the Universal 2nd Fact ...

, and began manufacturing the

authentication device for account logins. The YubiKey quickly gained worldwide popularity and attracted millions of users, including nine of the top ten internet companies. In 2011, the couple moved to

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

to become part of the

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

IT scene. Yubico is a leading contributor to the FIDO

Universal 2nd Factor Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) is an open standard that strengthens and simplifies two-factor authentication (2FA) using specialized Universal Serial Bus (USB) or near-field communication (NFC) devices based on similar security technology found in smar ...

(U2F) open authentication standard (co-authored with Google), and invented the concept of having one authentication device access any number of online services with no shared secrets. Under Ehrensvärd’s guidance, Yubico is the innovator behind driverless

one-time password A one-time password (OTP), also known as a one-time PIN, one-time authorization code (OTAC) or dynamic password, is a password that is valid for only one login session or transaction, on a computer system or other digital device. OTPs avoid seve ...

(OTP) authentication, PIV smart cards with touch-to-sign, and Hardware Security Modules that sit inside standard USB-ports. Ehrensvärd also frequently speaks on internet identity and entrepreneurship. In 2013, she was listed in the monthly magazine '' Inc.'' as one of the "10 Women to Watch in Tech in 2013". The following year, Yubico was awarded the Swedish Innovation Award, and in 2016, she was awarded the KTH Great Prize, one of the most prestigious innovation and entrepreneur awards in Sweden. In 2013, Ehrensvärd was interviewed by the business magazine '' The Next Woman'' about using the YubiKey for the first FIDO U2F pilot with

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. When asked if there was anything she wished to share with the community, she revealed: "We women are trained in our DNA to please. I have stopped trying to please everyone, but to instead follow my dreams." Ehrensvärd continues to work towards her vision of bringing FIDO U2F to the masses, having one single YubiKey to an unlimited number of services, and making secure login easy and available for everyone. Ehrensvärd's company, Yubico, is also a supporter of the Hong Kong protests, having donated 500 encryption keys to the activists.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ehrensvard, Stina 1967 births Living people Businesspeople from Seattle American people of Swedish descent Swedish business executives Swedish women business executives Swedish designers Konstfack alumni