Jack Ryan (politician)

John Clemens Ryan^[1] (born October 6, 1959) is an American former investment banker and politician who was a candidate in the 2004 U.S. Senate race in Illinois. In 2000, he retired as an active partner at Goldman Sachs to teach at Hales Franciscan High School, a private Catholic high school in Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood.

His 2004 campaign for the Senate, against Barack Obama, received widespread media attention for the disclosure of sealed custody documents stemming from his divorce from actress Jeri Ryan. The unsealing of those documents detailed allegations that Ryan wanted his wife to perform sexual acts in public which in turn led to Ryan's withdrawal from the campaign.^[2][3]

In March 2005, Ryan launched 22nd Century Media, a news media company dedicated to providing hyper-local news in both print and digital media formats. In 2015, Ryan left 22nd Century Media to launch REX, a technology-based real estate services company that works outside the MLS to sell homes.^[4] The value proposition of REX was to reduce the cost of real estate commissions from the customary 6% to 3.3%.^[5] This led to a legal battle with Zillow and the National Association of Realtors that responded by dismantling their commission structure to move away from the market-dominating 6% commission structure which CNN called "seismic" in its implications.^[6]