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Serial Scottish Entrepreneur and Investor, Strategist and Innovator

Russell has enjoyed the benefits of a highly successful international career in the technology sector and now focuses his efforts on supporting owners and boards of companies to devise and implement growth strategies to create shareholder value. In his earlier career he has held board leadership positions with International companies achieving turnover more than \\xa3200m.

Core areas of focus are Leadership, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategic thinking. He is a regular speaker at events on Leadership in business and has spoken at conferences from Los Angeles to Abu Dhabi.

Russell is founding Managing Partner of the advisory group, Exolta Capital Partners, www.exolta.com and Founding Chairman Scottish Business Network, the global network supporting Scottish.

Not all work - since turning 50 he has developed a passion for endurance events and can often be found at weekends mud splattered clambering over obstacles and "trying to keep up".

Most passionate about

• I\\u2019m passionate about my country, Scotland. I have the privilege of chairing the Scottish Business Network, which is the biggest diaspora network for Scots involved in business around the world.
• For the last three years, I\\u2019ve worked with some amazing businesses and I was able to help them use our diaspora of networks around the world to build their businesses.
• I\\u2019m also passionate about growing the Scottish Business Network , getting more people involved.
• It started three years ago when I sat with my colleague, Christine, in a coffee shop in London. We were discussing how we could bring together a few people to talk about Scotland (where I still live, outside the capital city, Edinburgh).
• We thought about having a small meeting and bringing together a few Scottish people. Since then, we\\u2019ve done events like this all over the world. And it\\u2019s growing and growing.
• We found people who were born in Scotland, who have family there, who have worked or studied in Scotland, who have a great desire to hear what\\u2019s happening in Scotland and are absolutely delighted to see how they can help Scottish companies achieve export success.
• We act as a bridge between Scottish companies and the Scottish diaspora based around the world. We hold around 30 meetings a year in London. We also have meetings in Scotland. We launched a meeting in Atlanta, Georgia in the US in January and we\\u2019ve done events in Dubai, Hong Kong, and California.
• The organization is not for profit, so it\\u2019s more to benefit others. It\\u2019s not a commercial thing. It\\u2019s not a business we are building to sell. It\\u2019s a business we are building to help others and to grow the community.
• Besides the organization, I\\u2019m a managing partner for an advisory company called Exolta Capital Partners. We work with smaller businesses with around two million pounds of turnover. We help them develop strategies for growth and then we actively help them deliver it.
• Do I see myself as an entrepreneur? I suppose so. I\\u2019ve never been very comfortable with the phrase \\u2018entrepreneur\\u2019 because I think it\\u2019s too broad. However, my interest is business. I\\u2019m a risk-taker and I like to build things.

Russell\\u2019s best advice about approaching customers

• My job is to understand which of my customers\\u2019 challenges, problems, and opportunities I can help them overcome and to then attain those.
• When I advise businesses, I typically find that there are things about their customers that they don\\u2019t know. A topical example: I was working with a young technology company in Manchester, England, They had a very firm belief that the technology was the main reason why their customers bought their product. Their website talked about the technology, the staff talked about the technology. However, when I interviewed their top'