Lisa Marsh Ryerson currently serves as Provost at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). As SNHU Board of Trustees Chair Winnie Lerner announced in December 2023, Ms. Ryerson will assume the role of President at SNHU as of July 1, 2024.

As Provost, Ms. Ryerson is responsible for the university’s academic offerings and the strategic direction for the overall student experience. SNHU currently serves over 170,000 learners around the world and is the largest nonprofit provider of higher education in United States. SNHU offers over 200 programs, from certificates to doctoral level degrees including business, education, liberal arts, social sciences and STEM. At SNHU, the Provost Office unites campus and online academic programs, as well as student experience efforts, including admissions, advising, student financial services, into one team committed to the student academic experience. Ms. Ryerson is a bold, disciplined, and collaborative leader. Under her leadership, SNHU is continuing to expand access to higher education to learners around the world. 

Before joining SNHU, Ms. Ryerson was president of AARP Foundation, the charitable affiliate of AARP. In this role, she set the Foundation’s strategic direction and steered its efforts to realize an audacious vision: a country free of poverty, where no older person feels vulnerable. Once she took the helm, AARP Foundation has developed pioneering initiatives, explored new avenues for collaboration, and secured unprecedented funding to support programs and services that truly change lives. 

In her time at AARP Foundation, Ms. Ryerson spearheaded innovative partnerships with other organizations to create and advance effective solutions that help vulnerable older adults increase their economic opportunity and social connectedness. These include The Root Cause Coalition, co-founded by AARP Foundation and ProMedica, which brings the full power of health care to bear in the collective fight to address the root causes of health disparities by focusing on hunger and other social determinants of health. During her tenure, AARP Foundation brought Experience Corps under its umbrella, launched new initiatives such as Property Tax-Aide and Work for Yourself@50+, and expanded its workforce programs including its longstanding sponsorship of the Senior Community Service Employment Program. The

Foundation generated over $5 billion in income for older adults in its past three-year strategic plan through work and jobs, tax refunds and credits, and food security benefits.

Ms. Ryerson has decades of expertise in education —beginning in student affairs and extending through 18 years of service as the president and CEO of Wells College in Aurora, N.Y. Her many accomplishments at Wells College included increasing enrollment by 45%, launching an endowed Center for Business and Entrepreneurship, and revitalizing the economy of the surrounding community. She has served on the boards of numerous higher education and nonprofit organizations, including the Council of Independent Colleges, Southern New Hampshire University, and the Congressional Hunger Center. She currently serves on the board of Shriver Center on Poverty Law, The National Women’s History Museum, and The Generosity Commission.

Ms. Ryerson holds a Bachelor of Arts from Wells College and a Master of Science from the State University of New York College at Cortland. Lauded for her leadership, she has received numerous awards and honors. Ms. Ryerson has an honorary degree from Southern New Hampshire University, given to her in 2015; and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the State University of New York at Albany for having “met and exceeded each of John Quincy Adams’ standards for leadership”; and an honorary degree of Doctor of Social Services from Dickinson College in 2017.