Ryan (RJ) Kolar

As of 2022, Ryan has helped launch dozens of client/partner companies, owns stakes in mostly sustainable ventures, and has a growing list of patents based on his ideas.

Trained classically as an architect, Ryan studied at Oxford’s St.Benets and Brookes College and The Glasgow School of Art before finishing his degrees at NCSU. He was licensed by 26 and a nationally recognized award winner the same year.

While working under Rafael Vinoly in New York, he founded the first of three iterations of what would be later be called ARIISE. During his MBA at Northwestern, he scaled ARIISE to include a REIT, architecture firm, development and construction companies

He spent the next 2 years engineering and financing the most sustainable luxury urban home in the United States, built of mostly recyclable materials and needing no grid connections to water, heat or electricity. He fought to change laws, but ultimately lost, forcing its change back to a grid home. Frustrated, he retired from Real Estate at 35.

He again morphed ARIISE into ARIISE Partners (an incubator/accelerator), ARIISE Equity (a venture group) and Shelved (a think tank).