Ryan Findley

Ryan is from Loveland, Colorado, USA. After exploring various high school leadership development opportunities, Ryan went to the University of Colorado-Boulder where he was a Presidents Leadership Institute Scholar. In addition to four years of leadership training, Ryan received experience teaching a course and coordinating a high school leadership conference. Throughout college, Ryan served as a junior counselor at the National Leadership Camp in Lake Tahoe. In his senior year of college, Ryan assumed the Director role of the organization and held that position for five years. 

Professionally, Ryan worked at Leader's Challenge, a non-profit specializing in youth leadership development through civic engagement and service learning.  For Leader's Challenge, he started a number of initiatives to improve student graduation rates and student satisfaction.  Ryan was recruited in 2008 by the former CEO of Blockbuster to incubate a new business concept, which he ultimately co-managed for two years.  Ryan also gained exposure to the non-profit funding sector when he joined the Boettcher Foundation, a Colorado-based organization funding the state's best and brightest young scholars.  After leaving the Boettcher Foundation, Ryan managed a small business in Nicaragua, gaining international business experience.

Ryan has also started a few businesses himself, including AFRCN APPRL (African Apparel), a socially-conscious company that exports African-made t-shirts to the US as a means of supporting local economies in Africa and raising awareness in the States.  Last year, AFRCN APPRL was a semi-finalist for the Unreasonable Institute. 

Ryan writes regularly for Leadership Magazine, a publication of the National Association of Secondary School Principals in the United States.