Ryan Lindholm has been named president of swirl mcgarrybowen San Francisco. Lindholm is a veteran in the industry, having strategically positioned, built, and launched innovation for global brands and agencies for the last 20 years.
The central theme of Lindholm’s unique career path was to develop teams that deepen the value that technology brings within the attention economy. While working with Nike, Lindholm led Brand Innovation and Advanced Concepts, where he elevated brand experience for Nike’s product, product +, and special initiatives across categories that were global in scale, including performance, structure, UX, creative, and brand narrative. Among his many contributions at Nike, he repositioned sustainability as an embedded strategy for Nike’s growth, grounding it as the new norm of making, further decoupling Nike’s business from constrained resources. Before joining the client side, Lindholm held senior positions at AKQA and Razorfish, focusing on driving business results through design, world building, data, and technology at scale in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. From there, he honed his CPG chops with marketing and innovation roles at Clif Bar and Nature’s Path, prior to joining award-winning apparel brand RYU, and, where he led product development, marketing, and business strategy.
Lindholm said, “Today, what motivates me most is finding solutions that drive a circular economy and ensuring brands are able to stay relevant and add value to their customers’ lives. I have spent my career charting the future and foresee companies won’t be in business in the next decade without radical change. What really attracted me to mcgarrybowen was creating an organization that will be well ahead of that curve.” He explained, “The fusion of mcgarrybowen’s creative success building platforms for iconic brands, combined with the digital firepower gained through their acquisition of swirl, offers an unprecedented opportunity to bring new, business-transformative solutions to clients that, unquestionably, will rival anything out there.”
Gordon Bowen, founder and global chairman of mcgarrybowen and global chief creative officer of Dentsu, said, “Ryan is a futurist and modern-day entrepreneur and has been at the forefront of leading innovation at every company he has worked. Even more impressive is his innate ability to evolve teams of creative mavericks in every way possible to deepen the value, accuracy, and service for clients and future-proof their ability to continually exceed customers’ expectations.”
mcgarrybowen acquired swirl, an independent digital shop in the Bay Area, last year, with clients including Microsoft, Clorox, Juniper, and Dole, consolidating it with their legacy San Francisco office, which serviced Intel and Clorox specialty brands. Lindholm will partner with newly minted chief creative officer Mike Wente to chart a new chapter of creative innovation in a new media economy. They are joined by Kate Walters, who recently was elevated to chief strategy officer. Remaining part of the team is CEO John Berg, who turns over operational responsibilities to Lindholm and takes on the title of chairman. Tasha McVeigh continues her role as chief culture officer.
