Ryan Allis

Ryan Allis
File:Ryan-allis.jpg
Born	1984
Residence	San Francisco, California
Nationality	US
Occupation	Entrepreneur Author
Organization	iContact, Connect
Title	Chairman
Website	Making a Difference

Ryan Allis was the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of iContact from 2003 through its sale to Vocus for $169 million in February 2012. Allis is now the Chairman of Connect in San Francisco, the Chairman of the Hive Global Leaders Program and a member of the United Nations Foundation Global Entrepreneurs Council.

In 2008, Allis wrote a book on entrepreneurship called Zero to One Million (McGraw-Hill, 2008).

Early life and education

Allis was born in 1984 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Andrew Allis and Pauline Middleton Allis. He attended school in Bradenton, Florida where he graduated from Manatee High School. While in high school in Florida, Allis built a web site design agency called Virante.

Allis studied economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now completing the MBA program at Harvard Business School.

Service

Allis is a member of the United Nations Foundation Global Entrepreneurs Council, which is made up of ten entrepreneurs who advise the United Nations Foundation. In May 2012, he visited the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya as part of a United Nations Foundation delegation. In June 2011, Allis joined a delegation from the United States Department of State and the United States Agency for International Development to Cairo, Egypt to mentor Egyptian technology entrepreneurs and judge the U.S. State Department NexGen IT Boot Camp.

From 2008 until 2012 Allis was the Board Chairman of the international development non-profit organization Nourish International. Allis founded Hive Ventures, an investment fund investing in firms in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and the United States.

Political involvement

Allis served as a National Co-Chairperson for Technology for Obama along with Marc Benioff and Reid Hoffman and worked with the Obama 2012 Presidential Campaign.

Philanthropy

At iContact, Allis created the 4-1s Corporate Social Responsibility Program through which the company donated 1% of payroll, product, employee time, and company equity to 501(c)(3) programs, modeled after the Salesforce.com 1/1/1 philanthropic model. Following the sale of iContact, Allis and his co-founder Aaron Houghton established a $1.2 million iContact Foundation Scholarship Program for the children of past iContact employees. He has also contributed financially to the Council for Entrepreneurial Development in Durham, North Carolina and to Nourish International.

Recognition

• 2008 Named Entrepreneur of the Year for the Carolinas by Ernst & Young
• 2009 Named one of Ten Outstanding Young Americans (TOYA) by the United States Junior Chamber
• 2010 Named one of Top 30 Entrepreneurs Under 30 by Inc. Magazine
• 2011 Ranked as one of the Top Ten Tech Power Players Under 30 by PeekScore
• 2013 Fellow of the Harvard Graduate School Leadership Institute
• 2015 Levo League 100 Extraordinary Millennials

External links

• United Nations Foundation Profile of Ryan Allis
• Time Magazine Article
• Interview with UNC-CH Chancellor Holden Thorp
• Interview with Sramana Mitra
• Zero to One Million