Ryan was born and raised on the modest plains of Northwest Ohio.

As a standout balsa wood structure engineer, he led his Odyssey of the Mind team to the state finals in 1994.

He was a second team all-league golfer his senior year at Toledo Christian High School.

While at Miami University, he interned for a local concert promoter and once negotiated free wings for Willie Nelson's band in exchange for an autographed photo. After graduating from Miami University, Ryan packed two bags and his golf clubs and traveled across the country representing Verizon Wireless at high-profile sponsored events.

In late 2007, Ryan left his life on the road and moved to New York City. He quickly connected with blip.tv as their first ad sales hire. He later held roles with IAC’s CollegeHumor and StyleCaster Media Group.

In 2014, Ryan joined Bustle to launch and then scale the national sales org, operations and infrastructure. BDG owned/operated ten publications with $100m in revenue when he departed six years later.Ryan connected with VaynerX’s publishing wing, Gallery Media Group for his next role. He led the brand partnerships team through the pandemic while overseeing expanded influencer capabilities and significant revenue growth. Ryan currently leads sales at Gumball. They operate a comedy production studio, as well as an ad platform for podcasts and YouTube channels that makes it easy for brands to scale campaigns with creators.