Brian Russell
Chief Operating Officer
I am a professional problem solver. For the past 20 years I helped my organizations overcome whatever challenges they encountered. It doesn't matter if it's Ops, Tech, Product, Sales, realizing opportunities comes down to listening carefully, paying close attention to the details and considering all the options. Building a new company, cutting costs, rolling out new products can all be accomplished. Every business has issues, what challenges keep you up at night?
214-674-7834
brussell8898@gmail.com
EXPERIENCE
June 2019 | December 2020
Vice President of Digital Video Services
Led 18-person team, supervising the day-to-day fulfillment of channel partner orders maintaining Service Level Agreements and maintained revenue forecasting and achieved revenue targets.
June 2011 | June 2019
Chief Operating Officer
Promoted to provide strategic and tactical leadership with full P&L responsibility, managing daily operations, product development, video operations, sales, revenue, partner management and strategic partnerships.
March 2007 | June 2011
Vice President of Operations and Technology
Led 11-member staff, managing day-to-day operations, product development and video operations with responsibility for ensuring all partner SLAs were met including order fulfillment, system uptime and availability, video availability and response time. Managed all vendor relationships and contracts.
November 2006 | March 2010
Vice President of Information Technology
Architected and led implementation of high-availability server infrastructure necessary to meet partner SLAs and developed technology road map for software and hardware platforms used to power the white label Search Engine Marketing platform for Digital Marketing service providers.
November 2003 | November 2006
Vice President of Information Technology
Provided hands-on executive leadership for developing software and hardware platforms used to power the Call Measurement Services platform for Yellowpage publishers. Managed the key account responsible for 20% of the overall annual revenue.
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Science
(BS) Physics
EXPERTISE
Business & Marketing Strategy
Merger, Acquisition & Integration
Start-ups
Business Development & Growth Planning
Product Development & Management
Turnarounds & Change Management
Information Technology
Finance & Sales Management
Business Intelligence & Competitive Analysis
CRM
Program & Project Management
Vendor & Partner Management
Process Development & Improvement
Contracts & Negotiation
Strategic Partnerships
Digital Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Key Account Management
RESULTS
Leveraged Existing Technology for New Products & Revenue, landing new business that produced 300% increase in profit, coordinating with Product, Technology and Creative team managers with added 330% increase forecast for 2021/2022.
Implemented productivity improvements and deployed a new cloud-based video encoding solution, increasing operational capacity and productivity by more than 90% and creating a new value proposition for MDS.
Turned around flat sales, growing revenue by more than 50% from $2.7M in 2016 to $4.1M in 2017, introducing upmarket solutions, stimulating new partner activity increasing revenues by an additional 17% to $4.8M in 2018.
MEET BRIAN
Q & A
Q: Why did you choose your profession?
A: I enjoy finding elegant solutions to complex problems. Initially, this led me to Information Technology however, I found I could apply the same approach to challenges in Operations, Sales, Product, and Finance.
Q: Who are your main influences?
A: Innovative Game Changers like Bezos, Musk, Brin & Page, Jobs, Chen, Hurley & Karim, Zuckerberg.
Q: What is your greatest accomplishment?
A: Personally – Being happily married for 22 years & counting and raising two sons.
Physically – Losing 100 pounds the year I turned 30 and keeping the weight off for twenty years & counting. Completing my first Half-Ironman the year I turned 40.
Professionally – Being a key member of a team that has built, grown & sold three startups.
Q: What tools do you use?
A: I have used NetSuite, Salesforce, Atlassian Jira, GitHub, AWS, Azure, Google Workspace (fka G Suite); Docs, Sheets, Slides, Microsoft 365 (fka Office 365); Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Prezi, iMeet Central, Wrike, RingCentral, Zoom, Google Meet, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Adobe Creative Cloud, MineralTree, Peachtree.
Q: What are you working on right now?
A: Selling a company is an exhausting process, after the sale of StandardCall, we started Metrix4Media and Media Distribution Solutions at the same time.
After the sale of Media Distribution Solutions to Spectrio in June of 2019, I stayed on with Spectrio for 18 months to lead the transition the customers, employees, and vendors to the new organization. That transition time allowed me to mentally recharge, reset and prepare for my next professional adventure.
Q: What are you looking for in your next career opportunity?
A: I am looking for a challenging and rewarding opportunity that leverages my strengths and experience but also pushes me to grow and learn. I thrive in fast-paced, collaborative environments where subject matter expertise and experience are merged to turn complex challenges into opportunities. I believe it needs to be OK to make mistakes, as long as lessons are learned. I want to work hard, have fun and win.
INTERESTS & HOBBIES
TESTIMONIALS
Timm Chiusano
Vice President Production & Creative Services – Spectrum Reach
Brian is everything you could ever ask for in a partner, colleague, or vendor. Over several years, two acquisitions, and through the pandemic, Brian was a critical part of one of our biggest initiatives and a true partner throughout. We negotiated and executed against two self-service creative portals that we built in parallel. The project had the highest of expectations; Brian and his team executed with near-flawless precision under SLAs that evolved quickly. He has always been extremely personable, reliable, dedicated, and creative in his complex problem-solving. Working with Brian is a true pleasure, especially when the stakes are high, and reliability is critical.
Charity Huff
Managing Partner - Maroon Ventures
My first opportunity to work with Brian occurred when Maroon Ventures was engaged to assist in the due diligence process during the acquisition of Metrix4Media. I was impressed with the maturity of the infrastructure as well as the overall architecture of the technology for such a young company. While Brian exhibits considerable subject matter expertise, he remains extremely approachable and open to new ideas. Brian's significant contributions made this one of the simplest due diligence processes I have ever been involved with. Since that experience, we have remained colleagues and worked together on several other engagements.
Margie Allmon
Director of Content Services – RealPage
Former Vice President of Production – ForRent.com
I first met Brian when ForRent.com engaged StandardCall for call measurement services in 2005, however it wasn't until many years later that we had the opportunity to work together. Media Distribution Solutions provided video services to ForRent.com for over a decade and in 2013, the video product was moved into my portfolio. Brian and I collaborated on a daily basis to strategize on existing and new product offerings for our organization. We successfully implemented process improvements and product enhancements that dramatically improved product knowledge among our Sales teams and increased revenue. He is skilled at identifying obstacles, developing solutions, and driving a team to execute directives from start to finish. Brian has exceptional technical acumen and has the unique ability to translate highly technical tasks into easy-to-understand language. I always appreciated his straightforward approach and strong work ethic. Our partnership brought value to both organizations.
