William Ryan
Founding Partner

Turn-around strategist, brand architect, Internet pioneer. These are just some of the terms used to describe Bill Ryan. Over the past 20 years, he has played a major role in shaping many of the industry’s major brands, such as IBM, Apple, Yahoo!, Documentum, Interwoven, Cognos, Informatica.

Large and small companies alike look to Ryan to help re-craft their company’s story, create new positioning strategies and transform their market presence. When Steve Jobs re-took Apple’s helm, he called on Ryan and his agency to manage Apple’s turnaround and to launch the iMac. When two Internet entrepreneurs at Stanford with a little search server call Yahoo.edu wanted to burst onto the national scene, they turned to Ryan and his team.

Having established a strong presence in the enterprise computing market of the early 90’s, Ryan’s public relations agency, Niehaus Ryan Wong (NRW), was among the first to start using online forums and the Internet to extend their clients’ “field of influence” beyond traditional journalists and analysts. With their eyes keenly on the Net as it transitioned from a government and academic communications tool to a publishing and commerce platform, Ryan developed the first PR practice specializing in Internet communications, commerce and technologies -- promoting early net icons such as Yahoo!, Global Network Navigator (GNN), Internet-In-A-Box, Spyglass, Virtual Vineyards and Spry.

Today, Ryan is among a handful of marketing and business strategy professionals in the country with a deep understanding of both the technologies, applications and services driving Global 2000 IT and the emerging technologies shaping consumer experiences in areas such as wireless, audio/video streaming and digital entertainment.

Recently founding Portola Strategies, Ryan continues to maintain his proactive, hands-on work style – keeping him in daily contact with clients and their markets. A true industry insider, much of his time is spent keeping clients’ executive teams abreast of market trends, developing corporate brand strategies and facilitating strategic relationship building. Additionally, he sits on the Boards of several companies and serves as strategic consultant to both startups and mainstream corporations.

In his free time, Ryan collects contemporary art with little concern for available wall space, loves to cook, studies yoga and the martial arts, listens to jazz and electronica, enjoys anything Japanese and regrets not being able to squeeze more movies into Web time.