Scott Ryan

Advocate & Filmmaker

Scott Ryan is an advocate of advocacy and documentary filmmaker. Having worked in the environmental movement since he was a teen, much of his study involves how advocacy and storytelling create impact. In the film world, he has worked on projects like the Olympics, the Paralympics, and Hip Hop Nation. Scott’s citizen advocacy-focused docuseries Manifesto forged a path in factual television, following the stories of community changemakers around the world.

More recently, Scott founded Monkey Wrench Agency, a company focused on creating PSAs for underserved non-profits. A PSA he directed and produced for 5 Gyres Institute was featured in their international campaign to ban plastic microbead pollution in our waterways; this resulted in a statewide ban in California, and contributed to a nationwide ban, signed into law by Barack Obama in 2015, known as “The Microbead-Free Waters Act.”

Earlier in his career, Scott was a campaign manager for DawnWatch, an animal welfare organization focusing on media outreach. He was also the executive director and co-founder of Identify Foundation, a mission-based endangered species non-profit, which forged partnerships with Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, Projeto Boto, and the WWF on projects in Africa and Asia.