Ryan Minton is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and former hospitality executive who brings more than 25 years of real-world expertise in customer experience and leadership to the stage.
Ryan spent his career rising through nearly every level of the hospitality industry, from frontline roles in hotel operations to Senior Vice President overseeing a portfolio of Marriott and Hilton properties across the country. Along the way, he became known for transforming underperforming properties, strengthening workplace cultures, developing high-performing teams, and improving the customer experience from the inside out.
His philosophy is grounded in a lesson learned over decades of leading people: the way employees are treated behind the scenes shapes the experiences customers remember most.
Ryan has seen firsthand that exceptional customer experiences aren’t created through scripts, slogans, or service standards alone. They are the result of leaders who build cultures where people feel valued, connected to purpose, and empowered to make a difference.
Throughout his executive career, Ryan led organizations through periods of growth, operational challenges, staffing shortages, and industry disruption while driving improvements in employee engagement, guest satisfaction, revenue, and profitability. During one of the hospitality industry’s most challenging periods, his culture-focused approach helped move guest satisfaction results from the bottom rankings into the top 25 percent.
Today, Ryan brings those lessons to organizations around the world, helping leaders understand the powerful connection between leadership, employee experience, customer experience, and business performance.
Ryan is the best-selling author of Thanks for Coming in Today and Uplifted. He has been recognized by Global Gurus among the world’s leading experts in Customer Experience and Hospitality, including a #2 global ranking in Customer Experience in 2026, and has ranked among the Top 30 worldwide for six consecutive years. He has also served on the Forbes Business Council and Newsweek’s expert panel.
Engaging, practical, and grounded in decades of experience actually doing the work, Ryan gives audiences more than ideas about creating exceptional experiences. He shows leaders how to build a culture of service their employees can deliver and their customers can feel.
