Ryan Manuel is the founder of Bilby, an AI startup that makes algorithms for analysing and predicting decisions in organisations. Before that, he was an academic at Oxford University and the Australian National University, a Senior China Analyst with the Australian government and a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. He holds a doctorate from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. Aside from his own writings and work as an editor, his research has appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The Guardian, among other publications.

He used his AsiaGlobal Fellowship to examine how the Chinese leadership uses official media to signal preferences regarding economic growth.