James Russell Email & Phone Number

Evanston, IL, US

St Louis, Missouri, US

Explore is responsible for driving Advantage’s transformation through AI. We identify high-value AI use cases and build, run, and evaluate technology proof-of-concept and business pilots to prepare new applications for scale. I'm responsible for defining and shaping our technology strategy, managing our innovation pipeline, and leading strategic partner.

Riff Digital is a digital strategy, design, and development firm that uses business strategy, design thinking, and startup methodologies to help clients quickly develop real answers to their toughest challenges.

San Francisco, California, US

Founding member of Elevate, Elastic’s data-driven digital innovation team chartered with leading engagements for the C-suites of Elastic’s most important customers. Led client engagements and the development of the team’s value proposition, offerings, methodology, and POVs.

San Francisco, California, US

Ignite is Salesforce’s strategic innovation and design thinking team chartered with leading engagements for the C-suites of Salesforce’s most important customers. Managed strategists in the Central/East region as a Strategy Capability Lead. Example Win: Facilitating the C-suite of a leading US property and casualty insurer in defining their digital.

Chicago, Illinois, US

Designed curriculum for and taught ID 534, a graduate course on strategic innovation focusing on ecosystem analysis and new business model design.

Pointy offered an enterprise SAAS application leveraging natural language processing to help large organizations more effectively share knowledge. Defined strategy and concept, built and led international software development and UI/UX team, led client beta testing and sales.

San Francisco, California, US

Founding member of the Ignite innovation team. Facilitated C-suite executives in creating their vision for digital enterprise transformation with a focus on the end user experience. Key industries: healthcare, telecom, manufacturing, and state government.

Dublin 2, IE

Led innovation engagements in healthcare, telecom, sustainability, CPG. Example win: Leading the C-suite executives of one of the largest US telecom companies and the senior partners at Accenture in a strategic partnership which identified and defined a net new $5B portfolio to bridge a growth gap. Originally hired as Engagement Director, Fast Innovation.

Led the development of the newly formed Research and Design Planning team, grew team from 2 to 9 members, led user research and innovation engagements, and presented new venture pitches to our executive board.

New York, NY, US

Co-led and helped develop Razorfish’s newly formed NY strategy practice, directly managed digital strategists, and provided digital strategy for consumer product and professional services clients.

London, GB

Led and supported strategy and innovation engagements to help EY Senior Partners and Executives identify and define new EY services globally. Managed our suite of executive facilitation offerings, defined net new services launched in tax, audit, law, and management consulting.

Chicago, Illinois, US

Led user research and strategic innovation engagements for the newly formed Design Planning team chartered to help Motorola senior executives identify and define new businesses, including a program which led to executive approval for a new European cellular smart card division.

San Francisco, California, US

Worked with IDEO’s Senior Fellow for Innovation Strategy in partnership with the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL) to help to advance and formalize IDEO University.

Mdes, Design Planning

B.A., Rhetoric