Lisa Marsh Ryerson is President of Southern New Hampshire University, the largest nonprofit provider of higher education in the United States, serving more than 180,000 learners. She became SNHU's sixth president in July 2024, succeeding Paul LeBlanc, after two years as the university's provost and six years on its board of trustees. Before SNHU she spent nearly nine years as President of AARP Foundation, where her final three-year plan generated more than $5 billion in income for older adults, and 28 years at Wells College, 18 of them as its president. She began her career teaching fifth and eighth grade.

Her approach starts from designing with students rather than for them: "they are investing their time and other precious assets because they have a goal they're striving to achieve." She describes SNHU as nationwide rather than national, meaning "deeply local in many places and with our students," and has used her first years in the role to build a people-first culture, launch a skills-based microcredential platform, and expand credit for prior learning. She holds a B.A. in English from Wells College and an M.S. in education and literacy from SUNY Cortland, and serves on the boards of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, the National Women's History Museum, and The Generosity Commission.