Ryan Hodgson · Founder & CEO
Leadership Coach | Strategic Consultant | Fractional COO
Unleashing potential. In people. In organizations.
Ryan brings curiosity, candor, and practical leadership experience to the challenges his clients face. He helps them see what’s getting in the way, make confident decisions, and move important work forward, whether as a coach, consultant, or fractional executive.
He founded Rysing Tide in 2017 to help people and organizations develop the capabilities and conditions they need to achieve their goals. Today, he works alongside a team whose complementary experience brings depth across coaching, consulting, and fractional leadership.
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Understanding the person and the organization
Ryan starts with curiosity: what are you trying to achieve, what are people experiencing, and what is making progress difficult?
He looks at the connections between leadership behavior, team relationships, strategic choices, and the way work is organized. A delegation challenge may involve unclear authority. A team struggling with accountability may need more honest discussion and clearer commitments. A strategy may need different systems or capabilities before people can deliver it.
His approach combines listening and thoughtful challenge with practical action. The aim is to help you see the situation more clearly, make deliberate choices, and build the confidence and capability to follow through.
How Ryan works with clients
Developing leaders and teams
Ryan helps leaders understand their purpose, strengths, and patterns, then connect that understanding with how they lead others.
His coaching and training address the realities of leadership: delegating, giving feedback, handling difficult conversations, making decisions, and developing people. His work with teams strengthens trust, candid discussion, and shared responsibility for results.
He also supports people navigating career decisions, helping them recognize their capabilities, clarify what matters, and move forward with purpose.
Clarifying strategy and organizational direction
Ryan helps organizations clarify direction and connect their goals with the people, capabilities, and resources needed to achieve them.
His consulting spans business strategy, mission, vision and values, organizational design, culture, and operational performance. He facilitates the process of defining mission, vision, and values, then helps leaders embed them in decisions, behaviors, and everyday work.
He uses interviews, facilitated working sessions, and practical frameworks to bring different perspectives together and turn decisions into usable plans.
Taking responsibility for execution
Through fractional COO and CMO roles, Ryan provides leadership for agreed operational or marketing priorities.
He works alongside internal leaders to coordinate teams, address constraints, guide partners, and establish useful ways to review progress. Developing people and strengthening internal ownership are part of the work.
Work through Rysing Tide
Since founding Rysing Tide in 2017, Ryan has worked with organizations and their leaders including Microsoft, JPMorganChase, the U.S. Navy, the State of Washington, King County, Entrepreneurs’ Organization, International Justice Mission, RangeWater Real Estate, and Lakeside School.
These engagements span leadership coaching, team development, strategy, organizational alignment, and operational improvement.
Ryan’s work with WGM Group and RangeWater Real Estate illustrates how he helps clients develop their leaders and strengthen their organizations. At both companies, he coached the CEOs and leadership teams, guided business strategy and goal setting, and developed mission, vision, and values. His work at RangeWater extended to coaching 50 leaders and developing brand strategy, while at WGM he also led organizational design and restructuring.
As a fractional COO for Vivid Candi, he has helped strengthen team structure, hiring practices, operational processes, and financial management.
Across these engagements, Ryan helps clients understand what needs to change and put that understanding into practice. Whether the starting point is a leader’s confidence, a team’s effectiveness, or an organization’s ability to execute, his focus is on building the capability for sustainable success.
Experience across leadership, operations, and marketing
Ryan’s career spans executive leadership, integrated marketing, operations, business development, and nonprofit leadership in Australia and the United States.
His roles have included COO at Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty, VP of Integrated Marketing at Yesler B2B, SVP of Integrated Marketing Communications at Weber Shandwick, and VP of Marketing at Steller.
During his agency career, Ryan worked with clients including Amazon, Microsoft, HTC, SAP, Verizon Wireless, and Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield.
As COO at Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty, he helped increase annual property sales volume from $1.6 billion to $3 billion in two years, while the company faced strong competition from the well-funded market entrant Compass.
As VP of Integrated Marketing at Yesler, he contributed to the agency’s rise from a top-30 US B2B agency ranking to a top-five position the following year. At Weber Shandwick, he led award-winning marketing campaigns, contributing to the agency’s recognition as Global PR Agency of the Year.
In 2017, Ryan was also named the world’s 20th most-retweeted marketer.
That breadth informs his ability to connect organizational direction with customer needs, team capability, and day-to-day execution. His work has crossed sectors including technology, real estate, retail, healthcare, government, and nonprofits.
Ryan also founded and led Team Up for Nonprofits, bringing together volunteer leadership, music, and community support to raise funds and awareness for nonprofit organizations. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Arts Management from Edith Cowan University.
The habits and systems behind progress
Ryan’s work is grounded in the relationship between what people want to achieve and what they practice every day.
Clear goals need support from useful routines, honest conversations, defined responsibilities, and decisions people understand. Strong culture develops through those everyday experiences, including how leaders listen, respond, and follow through.
He pays attention to both the results and the way they are achieved: the quality of the work, the experience of the people involved, and their ability to sustain progress.
A client’s perspective
“Working with Ryan has been one of the most valuable experiences in my career. Ryan helped me transition into my new C-level role with confidence and has been pivotal in helping me lean into my leadership gifts. With his coaching, I’ve been able to unleash my potential and shift into new gears. There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t leverage his teachings, encouragement, and agreements. I’ll be forever grateful to Ryan for helping me realize my abilities.”— CHRISTINE LESSARD, CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER, BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF BELLEVUE
Part of a team built around your needs
Ryan brings his experience alongside the wider Rysing Tide team. Together, they provide leadership development, organizational solutions, and executive capacity to help clients achieve their goals.
What are you working toward?
Let’s talk about your goals, the challenges you are navigating, and the support that would help you move forward.
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