Russ Nelson

My passion is building and growing consumer technology products, large-scale research and prototyping platforms, and product teams. I am currently a professor of product management at UC Irvine, where I teach and advise product teams in integrating GPT-3 tools and analytics to find larger markets and faster routes to product-market fit. Previously, I taught product development, design thinking, and blockchain courses at Northwestern. Prior to Northwestern, I was an early advocate for user-centric product management, generating billions in revenue for my clients. I pioneered social mechanics for Yahoo!, Blackberry Messenger, and WhatsApp, advised energy efficiency companies on selling invisible products, guided Intuit's transition from software licenses to SaaS, and developed go-to-market strategies for a number of customer-centric financial services. My work on consumer privacy and data security influenced privacy regulations including GDPR and the CCPA. I led several initiatives to make healthcare more patient-centric, including B2B strategic research for Kaiser Permanente which spurred widespread industry adoption of EHR and preventative care, and defining a new standard of treatment for HIV’s evolution into a manageable condition. Earlier in my career, I led product strategy from discovery through launch for the world’s largest fast-food company, where I defined a millennial-centric strategy the CEO called “the Restaurant of the Future” by introducing new digital audio and video research tools, working as an undercover crew member, and driving new metrics, workflows, kiosk and menu ordering, the double lane drive-thru, digital menus, and curbside pickup. I have a PhD in Marketing from UC Irvine and a BA in Cultural Anthropology from Northwestern. Only one of my products has been endorsed by Justin Bieber. I have presented at the UN and both Harvard and Hamburger University.

Specialties:

• Product management, consumer technology, entrepreneurship, product analytics, alternative data, business strategy, visual design, large-scale internal tools, customer retention

Education

• BA Northwestern University
• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) University of California, Irvine