Source & Speaker Information

Russ Finney currently serves as the US Vice President and CIO of one of the world's largest semiconductor production equipment manufacturers providing chip making machines to companies like Intel, IBM, AMD, Texas Instruments, Motorola, Fujitsu, NEC, Phillips, and Samsung. He now divides his time working out of offices located in Austin, Texas and in Tokyo, Japan.

His experiences were recently featured in a Computerworld article entitled When HQ is Over There. While at TEL, Russ served as a part of the core US start-up team which achieved a growth in annual US revenues from two hundred million dollars to over one billion dollars from 1994 to 2000. TEL now has revenues in excess of seven billion dollars worldwide.

Russ also currently serves on the Board of Directors for several central Texas technology and education organizations including the AusTech Alliance, a part of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, and Austin AITP. He is a past advisory board member for both the Austin Technology Council as well as the University of Texas Professional Development Center. Russ is also currently serving under an appointment from the Texas Supreme Court on the "Task Force to Ensure Judicial Readiness in Times of Emergency", which is chartered to begin the design and implementation of an emergency program to prevent or manage disrupted court operations throughout the State of Texas.

Semiconductor Manufacturing

In addition to working as a full time CIO since 1994, he also served in 1997 and 1998 as the MIS Guide at About.com where he wrote periodic features on Information Technology trends, strategies, news, and issues. You can read some of his past articles here.

Prior to his current IT executive position, Russ spent seven years as an Information Technology Consultant with the firm of Ernst & Young. During this time he wrote a series of white papers about Systems Development which have since been translated into Japanese. He also developed an extensive Systems Development methodology called VBM - Vision Based Methodology which is fully available through the Internet. Before E&Y, he was an IT project leader at several major energy corporations.

Semiconductor Design

Organizations & Media

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Russ recently served as a member of the National Board of Directors of the Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP). In the past, he also served as a President of both the Houston and the Austin, Texas Chapters of AITP. He periodically contributed to the Quality Observer Magazine as an Associate Editor, and he served as a 1999 columnist for the AITP national magazine Information Executive. About a dozen of his columns and a number of other essays can be found on the AITP Chapter Resources Page which is hosted by itmWEB.

AITP National Board of Directors
Craig Kennedy, Rick Piunti, Brian Reithel, Chris Leja, Coney Barre,
David Feinstein, Jerry Buckland, Kevin Jetton, Mary Reager, Nita Adams,
Sam Luke, Darlene Hite, George Koscho

Russ is frequently quoted in publications such as CIO Magazine, CIO Update, Computerworld (Careers), Computerworld (Development), Computerworld (Management), Computerworld (Teamwork), Computerworld (Government), Computerworld (Finance), OfficeSystems98, Entrepreneur Magazine (1), Entrepreneur Magazine (2), Texas Software News, Austin American-Statesman, Contract Professional, Southwest Airlines Magazine, the Austin Business Journal (1), Austin Business Journal (2), The Daily O'Collegian and many others. Many of the projects with which he has been involved have been noted in white papers by Baan, Metrix, IBM Enterprise Services, Pemeco, Concur Technologies, Enigma, and Catapult Systems. The IBM related Global eBusiness project was documented by Dr. Lynda Applegate and turned into a case study which is used by the Harvard Business School.

Russ is also the founder of three major websites for IT Professionals: The itmWEB Site™, Methodology.org, and The Open Technology Portal. He is also founder and executive editor of Techweekly.com, a blog focused on new developments in both information and high technology. He graduated from Oklahoma State University with a BS/BA in Management Science and Computer Systems. Some of his professional honors include the Gold Service Award from AITP, and the CDP and CCP designations from the Intitute for Certification of Computer Professionals. He has also been invited for the last five years to be a guest lecturer within the MBA program at the University of Texas, and he also currently serves on the Texas State CIS Advisory Board to help in the development of both degree curriculums and outreach programs. In the past he has served on similar boards at the University of Houston and at the Texas State Technical College.

Presentations and Speaking

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Martha Heller, Russ Finney, Randy Krotowski, and Andre Spatz
discuss global IT at the CIO April 2004 Perspectives conference.

Over the years, Russ Finney has been a frequent information technology speaker at various local and national events on many technology and IT related topics including:

IT Investment Planning (IQPC - Orlando)
IT Governance (IQPC - Miami)
IT Finance (IQPC - Las Vegas)
Outsourcing (Gartner - Dallas)
IT Executive Strategy (CIO - San Diego)


Ultra-Future Technologies (Innotech - Oklahoma City)
Global Information Systems Management (IQPC - Miami)
Global IT Procurement & Spending (IQPC - Orlando)
Web 2.0 (Software 2007 - San Jose)
Outsourcing (Interop/OutsourceWorld 2007 - New York)


Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery (Techxans - Austin)
IT Challenges (Innotech - Portland)
"Free Your Mind" Innovation Approaches @ Freescale (Austin)
Non-profit Organizational Strategies (AITP - Baltimore)
IT Oganizational Approaches (ITFMA - Las Vegas)


Successful Execution with Multi-location Teams (PMI - Austin)
Ultra-Future Technologies (Texas State - San Marcos)
Ultra-Future Technologies (AITP - San Angelo)
Creating Innovation from the IT Manger's Desk (ITFMA - Los Angeles)
Global Leadership (Texas L.E.A.D - Austin)


Outsourcing from an Executive Perspective (OutsourceWorld 2008 - New York)
The SCC vs SSO - Becoming a Customer Driven Model (SSON - Las Vegas)

He has also spoken overseas in both Japan and the United Kingdom. In February of 2009 he will speak at the NASSCOM conference in Mumbai, India. He is currently available for speaking engagements to professional associations and conferences based on location, schedule, and topic.

Please write for direct phone contact information:

webadmin@itmweb.com

Conference Leadership Involvement

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Sean Lowery, Innotech Producer, and Russ Finney

Russ also served as the Conference Chairperson for Austin Innotech in both 2004 and 2005. For the 2005 event he was in a TV commercial which aired on the central Texas TimeWarner network. He continues to serve on the advisory board for the event.

He also served as the Co-Chair of the 2008 OutsourceWorld conference which was held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. He is on the advisory board for this event as well.

Recent Interviews

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Russ Finney interviewed by Kimberlie Dykeman
SXSW Interactive 2008 (click to watch).

Russ Finney interviewed by Thomas Tucker
Web 2.0 TV (click to watch).

Part of a feature for FOX7 News
(Focused on company Green initiatives).

Russ Finney interviewed by Emma Beaumont
SSON Network PODCAST(click to listen).

Russ Finney interviewed by Allison Toepperwein
Innotech TV (click to watch).

Russ Finney interviewed by Allison Toepperwein
Techxans (click to watch).

Recent Honors

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2006 Austin InnoTech IT Executive of the Year Awards
Steve Guengerich, Director, Bridgepoint Consulting, InnoTech Awards Chair
Andres Carvallo, CIO, Austin Energy, InnoTech Conference Chairperson
Keith Stone, President, Austin AITP
Russ Finney, Vice President, Tokyo Electron, 2006 IT Executive of the Year
Greg Sedlock, Information Technology Director, TWIA, 2006 IT Executive of the Year
Alisha Ring, President, Austin Technology Council