A Rawls College degree and exceptional student experiences paved the way to a rewarding
two decades as a professional.
CREATORS
Basically, from day one, Ryan Horn felt like Texas Tech University was the place where he could see himself, find himself and be himself.
When you know, you know.
“From a college experience, it was a step into a world that I didn’t know existed,”
he said. “You finish high school and step out on your own. You’re not living at home
anymore. But I feel like I can point to being in Lubbock and at Texas Tech as where
I really found out who I was.”
Today, Ryan is the vice president of marketing for AdRoll, a marketing and advertising
company based in San Francisco. He offices in Fort Worth and landed the job just a
few months ago. He leads a team of approximately 35 people.
Ryan has been deliberate in his professional marketing career, moving only when he
felt the time was right or a new challenge awaited him. He credits his time at Texas
Tech and in the Jerry S. Rawls College of Business, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business management in 2006, for preparing him.
He grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and found the pace of life on the South Plains
and the offerings of the Texas Tech campus to be the perfect combination.
“I just thought, ‘This is a great stop for me,’” he said. “The culture of the place
was great. Everyone was friendly. Everyone was nice. You were included in things.
From a college experience, it was everything I could ask for.”
That was the social aspect, and it carried over to his classes, where it seemed there
was always room for him to join groups and be a part of whatever was going on.
Ryan also made good friends during his days at Texas Tech, including Seth Harris,
a former Red Raider athlete. The two connected shortly after Ryan arrived on campus
and have been friends ever since.
“Ryan has a way of listening and relating to those around him that I would describe
as rare,” Harris said. “I realized this early in our friendship. College years can
be tumultuous, and when situations arose where I needed to talk through something,
Ryan was my go-to.
“One of his exceptional qualities is emotional intelligence, and I’m certain that
quality played a major role in his career development as a leader.”
Ryan Horn
Ryan found the more connections he made and the more experiences he took part in,
the more he grew and the more confident in himself he became.
“Finding a place to belong was so important,” he said. “It was like, ‘Hey, this is
my group of people that views the world how I do.’ Certainly, it was transformative
for me as far as going in as a kid and coming out with a little more direction.”
That right path included deciding what to do after college. Unlike a lot of students,
Ryan didn’t have a clear idea, so he used the process of elimination, discovering
what he didn’t want to do.
“I wish I had been one of those people who knew they were going to be a doctor their
whole life and grew up to be a doctor,” he said. “For me, it was almost deductive
of what I did not want to do, and there were some things that led me to the business
school.”
That is where Ryan blossomed. He could see a career for himself in a business discipline,
although he still needed to narrow that down.
“For me, the business school made more sense,” he said. “It’s how my brain works,
and landing in management and marketing was more of a function of what I do enjoy.
It wasn’t accounting. It wasn’t finance. It’s the marketing side of things, the consumer
side, the managing people. Those were the things I enjoyed and fortunately was able
to parlay into a career.”
Looking back, Ryan knows he not only received a first-class education at Texas Tech,
but that he also got a healthy dose of West Texas values from professors and professionals
who took an interest in seeing his success.
There is always more to earning promotions, greater responsibilities and increasing
salaries than book knowledge. Texas Tech provided Ryan with a competitive edge that
has served him well for the past two decades.
“Obviously, the academics are important because you can’t go places without that,”
he said. “But I think there are more things now, especially as I reflect and am older,
as far as the wisdom that was imparted to me in terms of the grit and work ethic of
West Texas.
“I mean, it’s a Texas Tech thing, but it’s also West Texas in general. It’s good people
who work hard and understand that everything is earned and not given. It’s kind of
like making sure you have a chip-on-your-shoulder mentality that if you work hard
enough, you can best the big boys.”
Ryan has stayed connected to Texas Tech since graduation. He was a longtime football
season ticket holder, and he still attends multiple games for several sports each
year. In fact, one of his best memories occurred at a sports event: he met his wife
at a Red Raider football tailgate in 2016.
Funny thing, though, is Kaitlyn is a Texas A&M alum.
“I almost can’t even say out loud where she went to school,” he joked. “But I had
always tailgated at the same spot with the same group for a long time, and I saw her
and a group of friends walk up, and I knew they weren’t regulars, so I went over and
introduced myself.”
She was only in Lubbock for the weekend, but the two hit it off and eventually got
married and started a family.
“I hang it over her head constantly that we met in Lubbock because there’s just nothing
better,” Ryan said. “When we got married, every speech on both sides, it was so funny.
On my side, it was, ‘I can’t believe he’s marrying an Aggie,’ and on her side, it
was like ‘I can’t believe she’s marrying a Red Raider.’
“But she is fantastic. She wears red and black. She comes to the games. We dress our
kids in Texas Tech stuff, so I am slowly and surely trying to erase all maroon from
her existence.”
Ryan Horn with wife Kaitlyn.
Ryan has spent his entire career in marketing, beginning in the energy sector and
handling a lot of traditional marketing duties like television, radio, magazine and
digital. After four years, he moved to a new role on the product side of marketing.
The job allowed him to expand his repertoire of skills, zeroing in especially on solving
consumer problems.
His next stop was at Simpli.fi, a digital advertising technology company where he
spent 10 years. He was a one-person marketing department when he started, but a decade
later, as the company grew to some 600 people, his team also grew to 25 before the
company sold.
“I really learned a lot about leadership through all of those different phases,” he
recalled.
“Because while it was one 10-year period at the same company, it was really four different
companies within.”
He made one more stop with a similar company, and after two years, moved to AdRoll.
“It’s a company looking at changing the marketing function and the way we do things,”
he said. “The AI (artificial intelligence) products are cutting edge and will be on
the leading edge of a coming transformation. This was a great jump for me and my career,
a chance to ride a wave of change.”
As he looks back on a successful career, Ryan had specific advice for incoming Texas
Tech students.
“Try a lot of different things,” he said. “Don’t stick down one path. There is some
ebb and flow and conventional wisdom on how to excel in the marketing function. Used
to, you could be a generalist who could dabble in things. Then it was, ‘Let’s be specialists’
so everyone drew into an area of expertise.”
Now, though, AI is expected to disrupt everything. Ryan said the wise marketing professionals
will be generalists who use AI tools to be their specialists.
He encourages students to do some of the same things he did: test the waters, meet
different people, join clubs and get a wide variety of experiences on campus.
“If there’s anything I have learned through my career, it’s if you have a plan, it’s
going to change,” he said. “You end up in a different spot doing something different,
so having the breadth of knowledge and the ability to do different things will go
a long way.”
Even as new chapters of life unfold, Ryan said he still loves to look back on his
time at Texas Tech because it was there that his character was forged and his path
forward discovered.
“Texas Tech has been such an important piece of my life and a real grounding factor,”
he said. “When the rest of life ebbs and flows, Tech is always there. Lubbock is always
there. And it’s a great thing to anchor on, sort of a don’t-forget-where-you-come-from
thing. It’s not just where I went to school. It’s something that’s been a through
line my entire life.”