Chattanooga native Ryan Russell is an associate lecturer of marketing and entrepreneurship in the Gary W. Rollins College of Business. Photo by Angela Foster.
By not taking “no” for an answer, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Associate Lecturer Ryan Russell has used his lifelong optimism and tenacity to succeed, even luring Dallas Mavericks billionaire owner Mark Cuban into a Zoom call to a class.
Cuban, also of TV’s “Shark Tank” fame, appeared for 23 minutes on a Zoom call in April with Russell’s marketing class, promising Cuban a $1,000 pledge to his foundation and 15 extra points for each student. In the end, Russell agreed to buy the class Alyssa’s Cookies, one of Cuban’s investment companies, and Cuban told Russell to use any other monies for a class party.
It was not the first time Russell connected a celebrity and his students. In 2022, he recruited David Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, as a Zoom speaker.
After a Chattanooga marketing friend had to cancel his classroom visit, Russell asked the students who they wanted to hear. It was Cuban, and it didn’t take much to convince him after sending him a TikTok video of students.
“We were ready for the long haul knowing this is going to be tough to get his attention. It took about an hour and a half. Part of his success is he reacts quickly to things that he likes,” said Russell—who was born in East Ridge and raised in Chattanooga. He graduated from Boyd-Buchanan School, the University of Georgia in 2010 with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree, and East Tennessee State University in 2018 with a Master of Science degree in digital marketing.
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Click here to watch Mark Cuban’s Zoom visit to Ryan Russell’s class. To see Dave Portnoy’s appearance, click here.
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Russell credits his classroom success to a former instructor, Cheryl Eaton, whom he met while taking graduate classes at the now-defunct Marlboro (Vermont) College.
“Anyone who attends an MBA program specifically in sustainable business has some sort of passion or concern, or ethical imperative, that brings them there,” said Eaton, managing director of the marketing firm Guru.
“I had the pleasure of teaching Ryan’s marketing class—which was designed to bring to the students the notion of using marketing superpowers for good as well as teaching marketing skills. Ryan always showed up with absolute enthusiasm for the topic and commitment to doing excellent work. He was optimistic, enthusiastic and always on fire in his thinking as he made connections and had epiphanies.
“My favorite thing these days is to watch how he uses the same tools he teaches to create specific outcomes—getting interesting and famous people to speak to his class. I delight every time I see that and think to myself, ‘I could learn a thing or two from this guy.’”
Russell recalls the time Eaton devastated him after he spent all night working on a paper.
Eaton had summarized his work as “safe”—as in no thinking outside the box—“and I was crushed,” he said. “It was one of the best pieces of advice [thinking outside the box] I’d ever gotten. But she believed in me then more than I believed in me.”
She allowed Russell to rewrite the paper.
He has held several jobs, including as a “failed” financial adviser and then as a substitute teacher at Boyd-Buchanan, instructing middle schoolers in math, science and life skills.
While working as an after-school YMCA teacher, Russell talked his way into an internship at the Trust for Public Land in Chattanooga. Eventually, he started his own marketing company, Russell Marketing; the company later merged with Lift Media Group, where he remains active as a principal.
Russell said he had no prospects when he got his undergraduate degree at Georgia.
“I came out of college and had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up,” he said. “I took the first job that was offered to me. I was a financial adviser, air quotes. I was a whole life insurance salesman for MassMutual, and then for three and a half months I made negative $50 because I had to pay for a certification.
“I was talking to my pastor one day whining about how much I hated my job and how I was not getting paid any money and all that, and he said, ‘Well, you can quit. They let you quit.’ And I was like, this is brand new information. I had no idea, and so I quit my job, something I never thought I would do,” Russell said with a double dose of sarcasm. “I was volunteering as an assistant cross-country coach at Boyd-Buchanan at the time, so I could meet the rich kids’ dads to try to sell them life insurance.”
The head cross-country coach told Russell he could substitute teach until he found something more solid.
His first day, Russell learned the teacher he was subbing for had quit, opening up a full-time teaching position.
“So at the end of the school year, I learned a lot about myself,” Russell said, explaining It wasn’t a good fit. “I didn’t want to be a middle school teacher.”
He then told the Chattanooga office head of the Trust for Public Land, a man he knew from RockPoint Church, “I’m your new marketing intern”—a gutsy move because there was no such internship.
“I didn’t really give him much of a choice. I told him I’d be there and I hoped he gave me something to do because I’d sit on his front porch steps on Tremont Street, and I’d be back the next day and the next day and the next day.”
Ryan Russell has been a member of the UTC faculty since 2015. Photo by Angela Foster.
After deciding that marketing was what he wanted to do, Russell and his wife, Sarah, moved to Burlington, Vermont. Russell chose to attend the former Marlboro College because of Eaton.
At the same time, he struck out to find a marketing position.
“The lowest point was when I was turned down for a summer internship for a single A minor league baseball team called the Vermont Lake Monsters. I lost out to a high school junior,” he recalled. “They said that my Southern accent might hold me back. I was supposed to be the guy who was going to walk around as the mascot to summer camps to try to sell tickets.”
Russell said he swamped a marketing company with resumes and landed a position as a social media strategist at AREA203 in Chattanooga and—after the company shut down at 10 one morning—he agreed to revamp a local dentist’s website even though he didn’t know how. He farmed it out to someone who did and parlayed that experience into a position at Chattanooga Bakery.
After starting his own marketing firm, he joined UTC as an adjunct marketing professor in 2015. Three years later, he was elevated to lecturer in marketing—and last year to associate lecturer.
Russell, 36, and his wife have two children: Emily, 10, and Andrew, 7. Along the way, he earned a master’s through the online marketing program at ETSU.
Cuban and Portnoy both preached tenacity, he said.
His own advice as a college lecturer?
“Love your students would be my encouragement to anybody in this industry. Care about the person,” Russell said. “If you’re in this job just for money, there are different jobs that you should probably do. Your kids need to know how much you care about them, too. Tell them all the time.”
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