Ryan is available for hire
Hire RyanRyan Flanagan
Verified Expert in Management Consulting
Customer Experience and Digital Strategy Expert
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Toptal member since December 20, 2022
Bio
Ryan led the digital strategy at Marriott and Mirvac, overseeing $60 million P&Ls across ANZ. He transitioned into innovation and digital strategy consulting at IBM, advising some of Australia's largest corporates, before taking APAC RGM positions in tech scaleups like Zomato and CloudKitchens, leading product, sales, marketing, and operations teams of 90+. Ryan freelances to provide clients with decades worth of insight into new venture architecture, innovation design, and digital strategy.
Career Highlights
Managing Consultant
IBM iX
Director of Digital ANZ
Marriott
Education Highlights
Master of Business Administration (MBA)
University of Melbourne
Certified Web Analyst
University of British Columbia | Online
Graduate Certificate
Cornell University | Online
Certification Highlights
Case Studies
Distribution Architecture Integration
Digital ChannelsChannel ManagementSales & Channel Enablement
Customer Experience Strategy for State Government
Service DesignCustomer Experience
Customer Experience Strategy Proposal
Customer ExperienceInnovation
Expertise
- Customer Experience
- Customer Experience (CX) Design
- Design Thinking
- Digital Strategy
- Digital Transformation
- Digital Transformation Program Management
- Innovation Strategy
- Startup Consulting
Work Experience
Executive Coach
2022 - PRESENT
Shackleford Executive Coaching
- Served as a Certified Master Intelligent Leadership Executive Coach utilizing the unique, powerful, and game-changing intelligent leadership (IL).
- Utilized executive coaching philosophy, process, content, and tools created by John Mattone, former executive coach to the late Steve Jobs and the former CEO of PepsiCo, Roger Enrico.
- Helped leaders align their inner core values and character to the practical outer core skills needed to successfully meet these disruptive challenges.
Focus areas: Leadership, Executive Coaching, Mentorship & Coaching, Career Coaching
Innovation Consultant
2022 - PRESENT
11 Point 2
- Oversaw innovation management and idea validation for emergency services and fire tech.
- Led innovation management and idea validation for member services and travel tech.
- Provided assistance in building an operating model for innovation management practice.
Focus areas: Upstream Oil & Gas Management, Government Contracting
Director - Commerical, Strategy and Digital Innovation
2023 - 2025
Elevate Management Consulting
- Delivered a company-wide strategic review for a facilities management organisation, assessing structure, profitability, and growth priorities to guide an enterprise-level operating model refresh.
- Redesigned the target operating model for a digital services division within a professional services firm, aligning roles, budgets, and delivery workflows to improve accountability and efficiency.
- Advised a government ICT department on strategy and market positioning, developing practical recommendations to streamline operations and strengthen service delivery outcomes.
Focus areas: Business Strategy, Budget Modeling, Operating Models, Target Operating Models
Director of Strategy | Customer Experience
2022 - 2022
Government of South Australia
- Created the whole of government CX roadmap, including the feasibility of global best practice solutions, including formulating innovative, big-thinking ideas that leverage emerging technologies;
- Identified and developed a customer experience strategy and roadmap to 32 transformational digital strategy programs across the South Australian Government.
- Ensured effective stakeholder engagement, consultation, communication, and collaboration with government agency executives and staff across the public sector to inform the priorities of the customer experience strategy;
Focus areas: Customer Experience, Digital Transformation, Business Strategy
Regional General Manager | APAC
2021 - 2022
CloudKitchens
- Managed the APAC profit and loss as a business owner for the region. I designed and executed the APAC growth strategy to ten times the business and maintained healthy margins.
- Defined and operationalized the playbook to localize, refine and grow individual APAC markets, including the operating model, pricing, channel relations, and product to increase market share.
- Led record growth months in June and July for Australia, South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia in GMV through the platform and maintained scalable unit economics payback period, LTV/CAC.
Focus areas: Sales Growth, Gross Margins, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Business Strategy, Growth Strategy
CEO
2020 - 2021
Foyer
- Led and formed the partnership program with a range of international value-added resellers, OEMs, POS providers and integration partners in the US, resulting in two large multi-year $200,000+ ARR clients.
- Built a CRM, opportunity pipeline, and market-led growth plan, including creating sales collateral, sales enablement kits, sequential outreach, and metrics associated with sales velocity resulting in an eleven percent increase in MRR.
- Developed revenue share partnership agreements with Shopify, clutch, Bazaarvoice, YotPo, magneto, NRC, WooCommerce, and value-added resellers in the US to create additional sales opportunities at the value of $120,000+ in MRR.
Focus areas: Retail Technology, Cannabis, Point of Sale, Sales Growth, SaaS, Pitch Decks, Business Strategy, Growth Strategy
CEO
2019 - 2020
Revuefinda
- Created investor deck, approached investors, ran presentations, and developed the roadmap and business model of a first-to-market D2C application for a seed investment of $1 million.
- Developed a world-first audio-visual short-form mobile video review platform - created gamification to elicit higher volumes amongst review categories and launched product MVP to 300 early adopters with growth rates of nine percent.
- Designed the revenue goals, OPEX budget, and profit and loss controls while owning organizational governance and risk management to ensure statutory compliance and full accountability to equity and note holders while hiring a team of ten.
Focus areas: Seed Fundraising, Team Management, New Products, Sales, Marketing, Human Resources (HR), Statutory Returns, Statutory Reporting, Gross Margins, Early-stage Startups, Business Strategy, Growth Strategy
General Manager ANZ
2018 - 2019
Zomato
- Restructured the operating model to re-set the business for cost-efficient double-digit revenue growth while navigating the complexities of a complex market through new product launches and a revenue increase of 23 percent quarter on quarter.
- Implemented an EVP to improve behaviors and performance outcomes. I adjusted development milestones, training programs, and compensation adjustments for key roles leading to a ten times increase in satisfaction ratings.
- Created the business case, worked with technology teams, and made the go-to-market, pricing, and sales enablement to launch three new products, resulting in a three times diversification of revenue streams at four times contribution margin increase.
Focus areas: Teams, Revenue Strategy, Costs, New Product Development, Statutory Reporting, Human Capital Strategy, Business Strategy, Growth Strategy
Managing Consultant
2017 - 2018
IBM iX
- Worked on defining the customer journey and experience for one of ANZ's largest telco's resulting in cost savings across channel delivery and increased revenue generation from digital operating model design.
- Led a team of five digital strategy consultants to redefine the citizen offering for Australia's most significant state government, resulting in seamless service delivery to citizens and increasing NPS by six percent.
- Built the capability and technology roadmap for a big four institutional bank to build innovation capability across customer offerings in transactional banking and personal loan book to lower cost-to-income ratio.
Focus areas: Customer Experience (CX) Design, Innovation Strategy, Target Operating Models, Capability Build-out, Business Model Canvas, Business Strategy
Head of Digital Transformation
2013 - 2017
Quest
- Built channel mix, channel profitability, and volume trends and mix analysis. I then created a capability and delivery model and targeted the business's to-be state, culminating in a fully costed business case.
- Led the entire technology digital transformation of a complex $350 million franchise business with 174 locations across digital technology channels and operating models.
- Programmed a fifteen percent increase in gross revenue and a bottom line cost reduction measured in +$1 million over 12 efficiency dividends from optimizing workflows and establishing digital practices.
Focus areas: Digital Transformation Program Management, Customer Experience, Financial Modeling, Business Technology, CRM Systems, Channel Management, Sales & Channel Enablement, Digital Transformation, Business Strategy
Director of Digital
2009 - 2013
Mirvac Group
- Built a digital operating model within the business to support digital channel growth. Including creating a budget-neutral self-funding paid search program shifting marketing to a transaction cost.
- Developed both volume and conversion rate increases which enhanced gross revenues sourced through the direct channel up to twenty-two percent MoM due to enhancements in search, resourcing, and content across web and mobile assets.
- Created the first transaction-based search program in the country. This shifted the cost of revenue from an SG&A expense to a transaction cost, grew share voice by three hundred percent, and funding by eighty percent YOY.
Focus areas: Customer Experience (CX) Design, Digital Strategy, Digital Marketing Strategy, User Testing, Website Audits, Web Search
Director of Digital ANZ
2005 - 2009
Marriott
- Defined a new capability model that mapped the churn rates of existing customers and costed the LTV/CAC of acquiring customers to a unit economics level. I then build a new target operating model based on loyalty unit economics.
- Increased the online channel revenues by twenty-seven percent, achieving the over-performing benchmark for three consecutive years across 26 websites and 700 pages of eCommerce content.
- Built a predictive model that reduced loyalty churn by eleven percent in a business with a $30 million EBITDA and an analytics warning and workflow intervention which measured per member contribution margin and trigger points for sales.
Focus areas: Digital Channels, Sales & Channel Enablement, Business Strategy
Education
2012 - 2013
Master of Business Administration (MBA) in General Studies
University of Melbourne - Melbourne, Australia
2011 - 2011
Certified Web Analyst in Analytics
University of British Columbia | Online - Vancouver, British Columbia
2009 - 2009
Graduate Certificate in Advertising and Marketing
Cornell University | Online - Ithaca, New York
1998 - 1998
Senior Year in Economics
Old Dominion University - Norfolk, VA
1996 - 1998
Bachelor's Degree in International Business
Flinders University of South Australia - Adelaide, South Australia
Certifications
JUNE 2025 - PRESENT
ISO 42001 AI Management Systems
PECB
FEBRUARY 2025 - PRESENT
Agent Creator Microsoft Copilot Studio
Microsoft
JANUARY 2025 - PRESENT
AI Expert
Section
JANUARY 2025 - PRESENT
CAIO
Chief AI Officer
SEPTEMBER 2021 - PRESENT
YBF Startup Immersion Program
YBF
JUNE 2018 - PRESENT
Blockchain Essentials
IBM
JUNE 2018 - PRESENT
Cognitive Practioner
IBM
JUNE 2018 - PRESENT
Enterprise Design Thinking
IBM
NOVEMBER 2017 - PRESENT
Programme Management
ILX
Skills
Finance
Statutory Returns, Seed Fundraising, Blockchain, Financial Modeling
Industry Expertise
Cannabis, Early-stage Startups
Other
Design Thinking, Innovation Strategy, Startup Consulting, Service Design, Customer Experience, Digital Transformation, Gross Margins, Team Building, Retail Technology, Team Management, Marketing, Statutory Reporting, Foodtech, Teams, Customer Experience (CX) Design, Business Model Canvas, Digital Transformation Program Management, Channel Management, Digital Strategy, Digital Marketing Strategy, Website Audits, Web Search, SaaS, Pitch Decks, Business Strategy, Growth Strategy, Organizational Design, Program Management, Point of Sale, Revenue Strategy, Costs, Sales & Channel Enablement, User Testing, Digital Channels, Microsoft, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Web Marketing, Google SEO, Web Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Sales Growth, Cross-functional Team Leadership, New Products, Sales, Human Resources (HR), New Product Development, Human Capital Strategy, Target Operating Models, Capability Build-out, Business Technology, CRM Systems, Upstream Oil & Gas Management, Government Contracting, Leadership, Executive Coaching, Mentorship & Coaching, Career Coaching, Budget Modeling, Operating Models, AIM, AI Agents
Collaboration That Works
How to Work with Toptal
Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.
1
Share your needs
Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert.
2
Choose your talent
Get a short list of expertly matched talent within 24 hours to review, interview, and choose from.
3
Start your risk-free talent trial
Work with your chosen talent on a trial basis for up to two weeks. Pay only if you decide to hire them.
Top talent is in high demand.
Start hiring