Elder Ryan K. Olsen

General Authority Seventy

When Elder Ryan K. Olsen was growing up in Sandy, Utah, USA, his parents never let him leave the house without this defining reminder: “Remember who you are.”

“It used to drive me crazy when I was a young man,” he said, laughing. “But those words helped me remember my divine identity. They helped me remember that I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and that the Savior is my best friend. Everything we can hope to do or accomplish is only through Him.”

That reassuring self-identity and the examples of his parents, fellow missionaries, Church associates, and wise business mentors are precious tools Elder Olsen will utilize as he begins his service as a General Authority Seventy.

Born October 11, 1974, and raised in Utah’s Salt Lake Valley, Ryan Kirk Olsen is the son of Kirk and Cathy Olsen.

Elder Olsen’s love for Latin America and the Spanish language was cemented when he served as a full-time missionary in the Argentina Resistencia Mission. Later, he and his wife, Julie Dorrington Olsen, served together when he presided over the Uruguay Montevideo West Mission from 2016 to 2019.

He and Sister Olsen were married November 20, 1998, in the Salt Lake Temple. They are the parents of four children.

At the time of his call as a General Authority Seventy, Elder Olsen was serving as an Area Seventy. He has also served as a stake president, stake mission president, high councilor, bishop, counselor in a bishopric, and counselor in a ward Young Men presidency.

Elder Olsen earned a degree in mass communications from the University of Utah and has worked in a variety of business fields. He was an area president for Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., a global insurance firm, until his call as mission president. At the time of his call to the Seventy, he was working as an area senior vice president for that firm.