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Ryan Holmes

CEO, HootSuite

HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes' entrepreneurial endeavors include successes in a variety of industries from founding a pizza restaurant chain to building the top online paintball equipment supplier in Canada before founding Invoke, the agency that created the popular social media dashboard tool.



His interest in tech emerged early after winning an Apple II in an elementary school programming contest. Ryan founded digital agency Invoke Media in 2000 to provide holistic marketing, development and design services. Invoke also developed products including early CMS and e-commerce web apps, the Memelabs contesting platform, and then social media dashboard HootSuite. Rapid growth led to spin-out and funding of HootSuite in December 2009.



Ryan frequently presents at conferences internationally — including TEDx, 140tc, OMMA, 140conf, IMA, Open Network Labs — speaking about the evolution of the social web. He is widely quoted in media sources including NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian (UK), and Venture Beat.