Ryan Holmes

He is best known as the founder and CEO of Hootsuite, a social media management tool for businesses.

Hootsuite is a social media management platform, created by Ryan Holmes in 2008.

Holmes was born in Vernon, British Columbia.

Holmes is a contributor to the LinkedIn Influencers Program, where he writes about entrepreneurship and technology.

In the mid 1990s, Holmes began taking business and computer science courses at Okanagan College but he eventually dropped out.

Seven of the 21 employees at Invoke were tasked to work on building out the Hootsuite tool, at the time a freemium product that would enable businesses to incorporate social media into their marketing campaigns.

In August 2013, Holmes announced Hootsuite had secured $165 million in a Series B round of funding, the largest ever for a Canadian software company, led by Insight Venture Partners with participation from Accel Partners and existing investor OMERS Ventures.

In August 2013, Holmes announced Hootsuite had secured $165 million in a Series B round of funding, the largest ever for a Canadian software company, led by Insight Venture Partners with participation from Accel Partners and existing investor OMERS Ventures.

In 2013 Holmes launched an accelerator program for young entrepreneurs called The Next Big Thing (later rebranded as The League of Innovators), in part to help foster a "Maple Syrup Mafia," the term he coined in early 2013 to describe a new Canadian technology powerhouse similar to the original PayPal Mafia.

Previous interviewees include: Richard Branson, Jeff Immelt (GE), Liu Chuanzhi (Lenovo), Ryan Holmes (Hootsuite), Sir Martin Sorrell (WPP), Walter Robb and John Mackay (Whole Foods), Guo Guancgchang (Fosun), Wang Shi (Vanke), and Paul Walsh (Diageo).

In 2011, Cheng launched TEDxSFU, an annual TEDx event at Simon Fraser University which featured John Furlong (CEO), Jim Chu and Ryan Holmes.

Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes' bussauna, is a custom converted Nissan Civilian minibus.

Its investors include Hugo Barra, Ryan Holmes, Shakil Khan and Steve Kirsch.