Startup operations & people systems
Russell joined UrbanStems during its earliest stage and became the company’s first New York launch hire
before progressing into Senior People Operations leadership. As the organization expanded to approximately
120 employees across five states and roughly $10 million in annual run rate, he helped build the
infrastructure supporting hiring, payroll, benefits, HR systems, compliance, and employee operations.
His responsibilities included approximately $5 million in annual payroll, nearly $500,000 in contractor
payments, approximately $200,000 in benefits, multistate People Operations, HRIS implementation, and
workforce planning. He also built a SQL-based hiring-volume model and supported financial records used
during a successful $1.5 million bridge financing.
People analytics & organizational research
At Google, Russell worked in People Analytics using SQL and R to integrate and analyze enterprise employee
datasets, including five years of exit-survey data and Googlegeist engagement data exceeding 96,000 annual
responses. His work applied multilevel modeling, regression, mediation, moderation, multinomial modeling,
EFA, and CFA to questions involving engagement, turnover, destination employers, and employee return behavior.
The work included strengthening the analytical value of an underused exit survey, identifying latent
turnover constructs, and developing retention and return-likelihood analyses in partnership with People
Analytics, compensation, and strategy stakeholders.
Psychometrics & workforce assessment
At NCCER, Russell led psychometric and assessment development for national workforce certification
programs. His work combined classical test theory, item response theory, statistical job analysis,
competency modeling, SME facilitation, assessment blueprints, item-bank management, and platform/data
integration.
He also helped coordinate relationships with more than 50 subject matter experts across workforce domains
and supported systems that needed to be both statistically defensible and operationally usable.
Psychometric leadership & applied interpretation
As Director of Psychometrics at Inkblot Analytics, Russell managed a team of three psychometricians and led
client measurement and survey-development engagements. His work included R-to-SQL data pipelines, complex
survey-data transformation, psychological construct development, survey architecture, psychometric
parameterization, and hierarchical confirmatory factor models for polytomous items.
The role combined technical direction, team leadership, and applied interpretation for systems that needed
to connect rigorous measurement with practical client decisions.
