Biography
Designer and new media artist. Experiments in bringing people closer to themselves and the world around them.
Ryan is a leadership team member on the President’s Management Agenda for Customer Experience (CX) advocating for equity and access in evolving the way government and citizens interact. He co-led The White House CX Summit, is currently working with the senior leadership at NASA to envision the future of space exploration and to develop scientist avatars in search of life in deep space, and supports the executive team at the Department of Veteran Affairs to more fully wrap their arms around the veteran community.
As a student of inclusive design, biological and social ecology, behavioral economics and systems theory, his practice focuses a sharp lens on self-agency and culture change through design. His interdisciplinary approach considers the social-psychological, institutional, and cultural contexts of the human experience when bringing stories to life. This design ethos evolved out of the need to handle the complexity of extraordinarily wide, deep and complicated service delivery environments, such as deep space exploration and settlement, and establishing pluralistic worldviews in war-zones, and the hunger to deliver deeply human experiences with precision and artistry.
He’s built international brands from the ground up with proceeds in excess of $50m/yr, introduced brands to new cultures, and anchored greenfield organizational strategies for some of the most influential platforms in the world. First introduced to brand and design by Alex Bogusky (CP+B) and John Beilenberg (Project M) at the Fearless Cottage, he was involved in the ‘design for good movement’ early on. Always exploring the potential of visual storytelling and new media for social change, he is currently working on ‘The Genesis Project’ with Iconoclast/Anonymous Content, a series of art activations and short form non-fiction stories that dimensionalize, elevate, and expose the complex relationship we as a civilization have with water. As a result of a mass casualty attack in Dhaka, Bangladesh he began a pursuit into the counter-violent-extremism space and has since developed extensive counter-terrorism experience in Southeast Asia via the organization he co-founded, Hellen|Herald. As an independent studio designer and trained architect, he was the principal inventor, alongside NIKE Innovation, of the Concord Harness, a helixed-exoskeletal undergarment developed for TEAM USA to increase the longevity of paraplegic athletes during periods of extreme fatigue, ultimately worn by medal winning teams in the Paralympics.
He is a frequent speaker on the value of design and has lectured at Harvard Business School and contributed as Program Faculty at Yale Executive School of Management.
