Ryan J. Orr

Ryan J. Orr is a Canadian-American professor, entrepreneur, and investor. He serves as full-time salaried Chairman of Zanbato and as consulting associate professor at Stanford University. Previously he served as lecturer for the Stanford School of Engineering and Graduate School of Business and executive director of the Stanford University Global Projects Center. Orr's investment activity focuses on early stage companies in Silicon Valley as well as advising family offices and institutional investors on direct-investments in the infrastructure, energy, natural resources, and agriculture sectors.
Career
Entrepreneurship
Orr launched Zanbato, Inc. with Joe Lonsdale in 2010 and has served as its full-time salaried Chairman since 2012. The Company is developing the world's first alternative trading system for infrastructure, energy, and natural resources investments.
Academic
Orr has taught at Stanford University since 2005 on infrastructure, finance, and entrepreneurship. He has put together executive education short courses, including Managing Global Initiatives and Infrastructure Investment: Project Level Due Diligence & Analysis. In 2008, Orr co-led a delegation of undergrad students for a three week seminar titled Project Finance, Urban Development and Construction in the Middle East with Martin Fischer.
Orr served as executive director of Global Projects Center from 2005 to 2012, collaborating with co-director Raymond Levitt, managing the center's industry affiliate and research program. Over the 7 years, the center published more than 70 working papers, 20 journal articles, 7 doctoral dissertations, and hosted a series of Executive Roundtables.
Orr has been published in Harvard Business Review, Journal of Structured Finance, and Journal of International Business Studies. Orr is known for his advocacy of the direct and co-investment models, of which more than 20 major pensions and sovereign wealth funds now engage. Orr pioneered the concept of "strategic constellation" to describe how leading international firms are working together in networks to achieve competitive advantage.
Speaking
Orr has contributed remarks to:
* Global Infrastructure Initiative, Istanbul, Turkey, November 2012.
* Stanford-Berkeley Cleantech Conference, Palo Alto, CA, April 2012.
* APEC Summit, hosted by U.S. Treasury, Washington, D.C., June 2011.
* Institutional Investor, African Sovereign Funds Roundtable, Casablanca, Morocco, March 2011.
* Capital Matters Conference, Harvard University Law School, April, 2010.
* Testimony to the Little Hoover Commission, Sacramento, California, February, 2009.
Consulting
Orr has been involved in the following consulting areas:
* Designing a new national infrastructure bank on behalf of Finance Ministry in Port a Prince, Trinidad and Tobago, 2012.
* Helping a pension fund source and structure five energy investments in Silicon Valley companies including due diligence, valuation, and investment committee memo, Palo Alto, California, 2011.
* Spending one-year sabbatical leave on assignment with a major Canadian pension fund helping to build-out their direct infrastructure investment strategy, Edmonton, Alberta, 2010.
* Assisting a major U.S. city with the selection of a transaction advisor for a large-scale public-private partnership program, Los Angeles, California, 2009.
* Assisting with the design of the Public infrastructure Advisory Commission (PIAC) on behalf of California Governor's Office in Sacramento, California, 2008.
* Performing due diligence on 50+ unlisted infrastructure fund managers and designing the first globally diversified infrastructure fund of funds on behalf of HRJ Capital, 2007.
* Modeling the 10 year build-out of infrastructure and buildings for a special economic zone on behalf of Ministry of Commerce in Doha, Qatar, 2006.
Investing
Orr has served as an early-stage investor in a number of ventures including Addepar, Elastic Path Software, Phoenix Capital, and Violin Memory. He currently serves on advisory boards of ReWIRE, Valhalla Energy, and Connectloud.
Personal Life and Education
Orr grew up in Terrace, British Columbia and attended Caledonia Senior Secondary School. He completed his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering at University of British Columbia. He received his PhD from Stanford University in 2005 from Raymond Levitt, William Richard Scott, and Douglass North (nobel laureate).

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu