About Anne

“The Mother of Startups”

Anne Ahola Ward was dubbed “The Mother of Startups” by CNN, she is an Entrepreneur, Futurist, and published O’Reilly author. Ward is a Silicon Valley tech industry leader who frequently speaks on the topics of privacy, technology trends and social media at conferences and on television.

She is best known for her strategic growth science capabilities as an SEO for numerous successful startups over the past decade. Ward was an early entrant into the field of search engine optimization and in 2009 co-founded leading digital marketing agency, CircleClick. Ward has worked to devise social media strategies for world-renowned enterprises as well as startups (at nearly every stage of growth). Ward was named one of Entrepreneur’s “27 Top Masters of Marketing that everyone can learn from” in 2014, and “Top 50 Inspirational Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2017.” As a web developer she helped build Apple’s Distinguished Educator community, which was one of the first true influencer programs to exist. She’s also been invited to join social media influencer programs for Comedy Central, Funny or Die and the elite IBM Futurist Program. Most recently, she made computing industry history as the first woman to complete an STO under the ERC 884 standard.