Charles Canning-Smith is a successful entrepreneur and CEO based in Sydney, Australia, with over 20 years of international experience in mobile, digital, and marketing. He founded Chocolate Mobile, a multinational m-commerce company that provides apps and services specifically tailored to mobile devices and tablets, and has operations in ten countries and offices in the UK, Chile, and Australia. Charles is also a General Partner at Ballpark Ventures, a boutique venture capital firm with a focus on the mobile and early-stage technology segments, investing in over 20 companies covering sectors ranging from location and behavioral mobile advertising to cognitive mapping & AI.

Charles is one of the pioneers of mobile content and billing services in Australia, having founded Consumer First in 2003, a direct-to-consumer mobile content company. Before entering the start-up space himself, Charles worked as a Senior Analyst for Basex, a well-known research and advisory firm based in New York, where he provided senior business executives from organizations across the globe with strategic advice, technology guidance, best practices, and insights to help them lead change in their organizations.

In addition to his numerous successful business ventures, Charles has also been an active Angel Investor, mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs and financing early-stage businesses. Charles was a seed investor and director of RingRing Media, a mobile ad network and exchange that was acquired by Amobee and ultimately acquired by Singtel.

Charles has lived and worked in both the UK and USA, and for the last fourteen years, he has been living in Sydney with his wife and three children. He studied BA (Hons) International Business Studies with German, First Class with Honors, First Class with Honors at the University of Northumbria, and also studied at the Mountbatten Institute - New York and The King's School Macclesfield.