Otto Jacobsson is a finance and communications executive who serves as the chief executive officer of YAP Global, a public relations agency for the blockchain sector. His career transitioned from traditional finance, where he held roles at institutions including Deutsche Bank and PwC, into the cryptocurrency and Web3 industry. ^[2]​

Education

Jacobsson's academic background is centered on economics and finance, with a significant international component, particularly involving studies in China. He attended Katedralskolan Skara from 2008 to 2011, where he completed the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma program.

From 2011 to 2014, he pursued undergraduate studies in economics at the School of Business, Economics, and Law at the University of Gothenburg. He concentrated in financial economics and wrote his thesis on the topic of mutual fund management and performance. During his undergraduate years, Jacobsson participated in several international programs. He spent an exchange term at the University of Hong Kong from 2013 to 2014 and completed a short-term Mandarin language program at Fudan University in 2013. In 2014, he also took part in an academic and cultural program at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics that focused on economic topics in China.

He continued his education at the Copenhagen Business School from 2014 to 2016, earning a Master of Science in Applied Economics and Finance. While pursuing his master's degree, he also completed Mandarin Chinese coursework at the Copenhagen Business Confucius Institute. His graduate studies included an exchange period during the 2015–2016 academic year at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management in Beijing, as part of the CEMS Master in International Management program. ^[3]​

Career

Jacobsson began his professional career in banking and finance while based in Sweden and China. From 2011 to 2013, he worked in customer service and account management at Handelsbanken in Gothenburg, followed by a corporate banking internship at Handelsbanken’s Shanghai branch in 2013. In 2014, he served as an account manager at Handelsbanken in Gothenburg and participated as a delegate in the London Finance Group. Between 2014 and 2015, he contributed analytical writing on finance, economics, and international affairs to the Swedish-language platform MotKina.se. He also completed internships in 2015 with NOAH Advisors in Copenhagen and China Development Bank Capital in Beijing.

From 2016 to 2017, Jacobsson worked as an analyst in corporate finance at PwC in Copenhagen. He then joined Deutsche Bank in London, serving as an analyst in the Nordic and Dutch financial institutions group within debt capital markets from 2017 to 2018, before being promoted to associate, a role he held until 2020. In 2020, Jacobsson transitioned into senior financial and entrepreneurial roles. He became chief financial officer at YAP Global in July 2020 and concurrently founded and led Dwell Finance as founder and chief executive officer. During this period, he also worked as a business development manager at firstwire GmbH on a contract basis from 2020 to 2022.

From 2023 onward, Jacobsson expanded his activities into property services, founding Providence Property Service while continuing his executive and entrepreneurial roles. In 2025, he became a partner at Arc Studio. In January 2026, he was appointed chief executive officer of YAP Global, succeeding his previous role as chief financial officer. ^{[1] [2]}

Interviews

Role of Community in Web3

In December 2025, Jacobsson was interviewed by AltCoinDesk at Binance Blockchain Week in Dubai, where he discussed structural challenges facing crypto journalism and the difficulty of sustaining broad-based media models. He argued that specialization and niche-focused coverage were increasingly necessary, alongside clear value propositions and transparent business models from projects seeking long-term community support. Jacobsson also addressed the role of artificial intelligence in journalism and public relations, suggesting it be used to support research and drafting while preserving human editorial judgment, and emphasized the importance of building sustainable businesses in the crypto sector rather than focusing narrowly on token price movements. ^[6]

Panels

Building Across L1s & L2s

In November 2025, Jacobsson moderated a panel at the European Blockchain Convention on building across Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchain networks, featuring Guillaume Dechaux of ConsenSys, Helmut Siedl of DMD Diamond, Matthew Dawson of the Ethereum Foundation, and Mounir Benchemled of Velora. The discussion covered decentralization as a factor in scalability and security, differing perspectives on specialization versus consolidation among chains, and the technical and governance challenges of interoperability. Panelists also highlighted that users primarily seek seamless experiences without needing to understand blockchain infrastructure, underscoring the importance of interface design and transaction abstraction. The session concluded with a forward-looking view that cross-chain interoperability would be a key focus of industry development in the near term. ^[5]