Shields Russell

Shields founded Rapid Innovation Group in 2003 with the intention of building a specialist consulting firm focused exclusively on the practice of entrepreneurial management.

Shields' current interests in specific practice areas include:

• Designing effective boards that are strategically and stage-aligned
• De-risking the building and launch of a new products
• Sales-less distribution and monetisation
• Building and managing high end sales teams that are a source of competitive differentiation and advantage
• Aligning organisational design to strategy during the ‘capability build’ phase
• Reducing hiring risk around key hires

Shields’ strategic priorities include optimising RIG’s client portfolio as well as creating and building new businesses in which RIG is a significant shareholder.

Before RIG, Shields was a management consultant at Charter Management Consulting working across sectors for large organisations and fast growth SMEs. He founded and was CEO of Greychip, an e-learning company based on the principles of self-managed learning. In his early career, Shields spent two years running a landscape design company on Shelter Island, New York and three years as an English teacher at Maru a Pula, an independent, co- educational secondary school located in Gaborone, Botswana.

Shields sits on the advisory board of Ascendant Corporate Finance. He was previously an executive Director at Glide Technologies, which was acquired by NASDAQ OMX in November 2011.

Shields is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and holds a Masters from Lancaster University.