Scott Russell

Adjunct Professor; Managing Director, eCarnegie Tech

Intrapreneur/Entrepreneur: What Are The Lessons in Creating a Startup, either Externally or Within a Company?

Scott Russell is an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley and has had a 25-year career in information technology; first as a senior manager of technology for some of the world's largest financial institutions and later as an investor in technology start-ups. For the last 11 years, Scott has been a general partner with Diamondhead Ventures and Mobius Venture Capital. During his tenure as a venture capitalist, Scott has helped manage funds totaling over 2 billion dollars and has invested in over 150 technology companies.

In 1996, Scott co-founded Mobius Venture Capital (formerly known as SOFTBANK Technology Ventures), where he focused on software, financial services, and Internet opportunities. Scott and his partners invested in and helped build many well known successful startups including Yahoo!, E*Trade, Verisign, E-Loan , Geocities (sold to Yahoo!), Buy.com, and many others. Scott has personally served as a director on the boards of over 30 companies, including the public boards of Supportsoft and Buy.com.

Prior to his career in venture capital, Scott spent 14 years managing corporate technology for several multi-national firms, including Swiss Bank, S.G. Warburg (London), Goldman Sachs (Tokyo) and J.P. Morgan (New York). As Managing Director of Information Technology, Scott was responsible for all aspects of the banks' technology including the development of proprietary global trading systems and the acquisition of third party software and hardware products.

Scott is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and London Business School. He is a founder of Carnegie Mellon's Silicon Valley campus and is on the School of Computer Science Dean's advisory board. He is a frequent speaker, panelist and business plan contest judge at several leading universities.