Richard Russel
Innovate like Amazon, Set Goals like Google
Richard has 20 years of experience leading innovation, product, business and technology teams at Amazon, Google and Deutsche Bank. He is now an independent consultant and executive coach. His clients include Vodafone Romania, Software AG, Nestle Purina Europe, POST Luxembourg, IKEA South East Asia, Luxair and LuxairTours, and P&O Ferries, as well as around 50 startups through Luxinnovation's respected Fit4Start program and his independent coaching work.
Richard helps companies adopt methods he has adapted from Amazon, Google and the startup world that enable people in corporate environments to turn ideas into action and strategy into results. Through these methods, people are empowered to create value for customers in ways that work for the business. He believes that the people best positioned to innovate are those actually doing the work, and that management's role is to empower them - not by doing less, but by doing more
Exponental jobs
2017 - 2021
Consultant, Coach and Advisor
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Russell and Company
I help companies innovate, execute and scale, through product innovation and digital strategy. Clients include Nestle Purina, Software AG, Luxair, IKEA, POST Luxembourg, Vodafone, and more. Founder of Working Backwards, program and method for collaboration and innovation that accelerates development
2014 - 2017
Sr. Manager Product Development
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Amazon.com
Acting Director for Consumer Localization from with a multi-disciplined team of >100, translating and localising millions of product listings each day across all Amazon’s marketplaces using machine translation, AI and large scale data tools. Led 2016 planning with 2.5x revenue growth , and 2017 planning with 2x revenue growth (goals met)
2013 - 2014
Chief Product Officer
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MoPowered (LON:MPOW)
MoPowered provides a SaaS solution to online retailers enabling them to sell on the mobile. Managed engineering and product. Accelerated releases from quarterly to weekly, created a hiring process and grew team from 8 to 18 people in 4 months. Redesigned Backend and UI, halving merchant integration cost and enabling metrics-driven customer experience improvements
2012 - 2013
CEO and Founder
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High Street Labs, London
Mobile loyalty app, using geolocation to provide personalised service, loyalty rewards and payments. Developed proof of concept, ran pilot with local coffee shops, discovered need to pivot to sell to larger chains
2006 - 2012
Sales Engineer & Client Solutions Manager
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Developed tools to enable scaling of map data operations, launching 4x faster with 50% fewer FTEs. Product managed european Checkout and Wallet features including VAT, Chip-and-PIN, and Contactless Payments. Managed AdSense Broadcast, Publishing and Portal partnerships worth £100M/yr with 80% YoY growth
Lead Deployment Engineer, Global Markets eCommerce
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Deutsche Bank, London
Ran a DevOps team for Deutsche Bank’s online wholesale foreign exchange, bonds and derivatives trading platform, Autobahn. Developed product and white label release process, launched new product 3x faster than before. Planned and executed the first successful Business Continuity Test in Global Markets eCommerce
2003 - 2006
Traditional jobs
Education
Adelaide University, Adelaide, Australia - BSc (Mathematics & Computer Science)
Double major in Computer Science and Pure Mathematics, with GPA equivalent of 6.0/7.0
Awarded Dean’s Certificate of Merit and Summer Scholarship in Distributed & High Performance Computing
GMAT 780/800 (99th percentile)
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