Ryan

Ryan McDonough

Ryan McDonough was most recently the CFO at Ning, where he oversaw financial planning & operations to help Ning achieve its business objectives and scale for the future. During his two years with the company, Ryan shepherded the business from a freemium model to focusing exclusively on its subscription business, increasing the paid user base by 5X. In addition to leading the pricing strategy, Ryan stripped millions in annual spend out of the cost base, instituted professional finance operations and laid the foundation for a metrics driven business.

The turnaround resulted in Ning’s acquisition by Glam Media completed in December 2011. The combined company is now one of the largest social media companies in the world with more than 250 million monthly unique users, and more than 100,000 publishers and content creators.

Ryan is currently a Venture Partner with Allegro Partners, a seed venture fund based in the San Francisco Bay Area. At Allegro he invests in and works closely with early stage technology companies like Mass Relevance, OrderGroove & Enthuse. Prior to Allegro & Ning, Ryan was a senior manager at McKinsey & Company – where he served a range of clients in the high-tech, financial and telecom spaces. His strategy and operations work has taken him around the globe, working in McKinsey’s San Francisco, Silicon Valley, London, Hong Kong and Tel Aviv offices. He’s counseled CEOs and top management across the range of business issues, from corporate vision setting to product definition to streamlining back-office operations to more cost-effectively meet customer needs.

Ryan is on the Board of The V Foundation Wine Celebration – a charity wine auction – which has raised over $40 million for cancer research. Ryan chairs both the Technology and Finance Committees.

Ryan holds an MBA from the Wharton School, with honors, and did his undergraduate work at Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley where he was top of class.

When not working, he enjoys spending time with his wife & son, working on the house, and painting.  (see gallery at the top of the page for samples)