Founder & Principal (Oak Brook, IL)
Ryan D. Butt, DBA, JD, is a higher education executive, educator, strategist, and organizational builder who currently serves as Dean of the College of Business and Graduate School of Management at Lewis University.
At Lewis, Ryan provides strategic, academic, and operational leadership across undergraduate, graduate, adult, online, and international business education. His work encompasses academic strategy, faculty and staff leadership, program development, enrollment and resource planning, external engagement, career readiness, and student success. He is leading the College’s transition from more than 15 years of ACBSP accreditation toward AACSB accreditation and co-chairs the University’s Operational Efficiency Task Force, a university-wide initiative focused on stewardship, organizational effectiveness, service improvement, and resource alignment.
Ryan founded The Constaré® Group, LLC in 2004 as a mission-based social venture practice focused on nonprofit sustainability, social entrepreneurship, and cross-sector collaboration. The firm grew from formative experiences working with street-connected youth in Kenya and later serving in leadership for a regional nonprofit organization in Indiana.
Through Constaré, Ryan advised nonprofit organizations, nongovernmental organizations, educational institutions, and other mission-driven organizations on earned-revenue strategies, organizational sustainability, governance, and social-enterprise development. The work reflected his longstanding belief that sound business principles and social impact are not competing ideas—and that, when thoughtfully integrated, they can strengthen both organizations and the communities they serve.
As Ryan’s responsibilities in higher education expanded, his professional focus transitioned fully to academic and institutional leadership. Today, Constaré primarily represents the legacy of his earlier consulting and social-enterprise work and the ideas that continue to inform his leadership, scholarship, and approach to organizational transformation. He does not maintain an active general consulting practice.
In addition to his leadership at Lewis, Ryan serves as President of the La Salle Business School Alliance, helping connect Lasallian business schools and universities internationally and advance institutional collaboration, shared programming, and engagement across borders. He also serves on the Choose DuPage Board of Directors, contributing to regional conversations involving economic development, workforce needs, education-business partnerships, and talent development.
Ryan earned a Doctor of Business Administration from DePaul University, where his research examined entrepreneurial orientation among first- and continuing-generation college graduates. He holds a Juris Doctor from Valparaiso University, a Master of Science in Administration with a concentration in nonprofit business administration from the University of Notre Dame, and a Bachelor of Arts from Notre Dame with majors in Government and International Studies and African and African-American Studies.
Across nonprofit leadership, consulting, international development, and higher education, Ryan’s work has remained grounded in a consistent belief: leadership is about creating the conditions in which people and organizations can become better than they were before.