As an entrepreneur and tech executive, Jan Ryan has been passionate about building great businesses for over 25 years, resulting in four successful acquisitions and one IPO, primarily in web-based and emerging technologies. Her long-standing mantra has been: “Fall in love with making your customers’ lives better.” The early years of her career proved this out, as she built industry-recognized sales teams for enterprise software and business analytics, both in public and privately held companies.

Jan co-founded Social Dynamx in 2010 with a passion to transform customer care in the age of social technology. As President of Social Dynamx, Jan was driven by customers’ changing expectations in their purchase cycle with brands. Raising $3M in funding, the company brought to market the first social customer care platform designed for the needs of big enterprises, and quickly attracted several large customers such as DISH Network, Time Warner Cable, and HP. This led to an acquisition by industry leader Lithium Technologies in the Fall of 2012. The Social Dynamx cloud-based platform (re-branded “Lithium Social Web”) is now combined with Lithium’s on-domain community software to create the industry’s first end-to-end platform for managing social customer experiences.

Jan originally moved to Austin in 1996 to join the executive team who launched Vignette Corporation, an early Internet enterprise software company that experienced one of the most successful IPOs of 1999. As VP Worldwide Sales, Jan established Vignette’s sales infrastructure and management team, and was responsible for driving revenue through all channels worldwide, including direct sales, telesales and a network of systems integrators. After Vignette, Jan was founding President / Chief Operating Officer of ROME Corporation in Austin, raising $7M in funding from Azure Capital Partners. ROME was launched in 2001 with a focus on global credit risk and capital management solutions, and ultimately was acquired by Triple Point Technology.

Jan also spent time in Silicon Valley as CEO of Sigma Dynamics, a San Mateo-based early provider of real-time predictive analytics. The company raised a total of $8 million in venture capital, and under Ryan’s leadership, went through a successful re-launch in the marketplace, attracting a sale to Oracle (ORCL) in 2006.  Sigma’s Real-time Decision (RTD) software became the foundation for predictive decisions within Oracle’s Business Intelligence Suite, in use in Fortune 500 enterprises today.

A common theme throughout Jan’s career has been a focus on early revenue in unproven new markets, strategic deal making, and the build-out of high performance teams. Jan earned a BBA degree from Baylor University with distinction, and has served on various Boards, Advisory Boards of start-up companies and philanthropic organizations.

Jan is passionate about new ideas in social business, mentoring entrepreneurs, and seeing Austin’s influence grow as a center of innovation. She enjoys long distance cycling and her current labor-of-love, building a 100% off-the-grid ranch with her husband outside of Wimberley, Texas.