Ellen Petry Leanse (born Ellen Petry August 12, 1958) is an American author, businesswoman, educator, entrepreneur, and online community pioneer. Leanse has spent 35 years working with leaders at Apple, Google, Facebook, as an entrepreneur, and with dozens of startups. She's a writer on topics of workplace dynamics and a Stanford instructor. Her work has spanned entrepreneurship, corporate leadership, investing, and strategy consulting.
An alum of Apple (1981 – 1990), she launched the company's first online activity through the User Group Connection, an initiative she founded at Apple in 1985.
She was employed by Google from 2008 through 2010 and created a social list-making app Lists by 222do for the initial launch of the Facebook development platform (2007).
In 2015, Business Insider published her LinkedIn article about the word "just" and its use across genders. The post received more than three million views. It was originally published via Women 2.0, an organization she advised from 2012 through 2016.
She spoke on "Happiness by Design" at TEDx Berkeley in 2016.
Leanse is an instructor at Stanford University and teaches through the university's Continuing Studies program.
Leanse is a contributing writer to Arianna Huffington's Thrive Global platform.
Early life
Leanse was born in Dayton, Ohio, and raised in the Fairglen neighborhood of San Jose, CA. Her father, John Gerald Petry, was a WWII veteran and mechanical engineer who held several patents for automotive lift technology. Her mother, Kathleen Minch Petry, was a secretary and hospital administrator.
She graduated from Presentation High School in 1976 and was named a Bank of America Bicentennial Scholar and was also a National Merit Scholar. She studied art and international business and graduated from San Diego State University with a BA in International Marketing in 1981.
Shortly after graduating she was in a serious bicycle accident and returned to San Jose to recover at her parents' home. It was at that time that she applied to Apple and received a rejection letter, which she challenged. She was hired in November 1981 and wrote about the experience in a 2014 article about the Apple logo and its impact.
Her first job at Apple was as an International Communications Specialist in the Intercontinental division, which distributed and promoted Apple products, primarily the Apple II and Apple III and related accessories, everywhere in the world except for the US and Europe. She launched Apple's first formal product communications (they were newsletters) to these regions and introduced Spanish language versions of these communications in 1986. She also did product launches in the markets they served.
She joined the extended Macintosh team in 1983 as Product Manager for international Macintosh accessories, including local-language keyboards, CCITT and CSA modems, regionally-compliant printers, and power supplies.
In 1985 she was asked to interview for a role as Apple's first “User Evangelist” – a response to frustration in the Apple II installed base that Apple had abandoned, its earliest and most faithful users as it began to focus increasingly on the Macintosh. John Sculley served as a sponsor for this position and she accepted the role in September 1985.
Technology career
Apple
In her nine years at Apple Leanse served on the Macintosh launch team (1984) and led the company's pioneering work in creating online communities. Leanse became an Apple employee in November 1981 and became Apple's first User Evangelist in September 1985.
The User Group track she established at MacWorld conferences brought Apple product leaders including Bill Atkinson, Alan Kay, Guy Kawasaki together with users to exchange information on product priorities and direction.
Leanse led and grew this organization through 1990, when she left Apple.
Her charter was to address the frustration directed at Apple from the Apple II and Apple III installed base - individuals, business people, government officials and education leaders from around the world who had come to feel abandoned by Apple as it turned its attention to the Macintosh.
In 1985 Leanse became Apple's first “User Evangelist,” charged to forge relationships with Apple's growing, and increasingly divided, Apple II/Apple III and Macintosh installed base. Her early work connected her with technology influencers including NASA’s David Lavery, the Boston Computer Society’s Jonathan Rotenberg, and the Berkeley Macintosh User Group’s Raines Cohen and Reese Jones.