Russell Lookadoo is the President and Chief Strategist of HRchitecture, a consulting firm specializing in helping business leaders accomplish their goals by effectively using their teams. Russell brings three decades of experience designing and implementing performance management, motivational and rewards solutions that achieve business strategies in organizations ranging from a small manufacturer to the second largest bank in America.
Russell is the only consultant in the area to combine this broad Human Resources background with a decade of practical business advising with small businesses. This unique combination allows Russell to work closely with business owners and key leaders to find solutions to their business challenges and align the vision of the owner with that of the company.
Growing up, Russell worked in the family business selling and repairing bicycles. This gives him first hand experience with the challenges and rewards of small family business ownership. While in college Russell participated in a summer internship program that provided insight into many different organizations and cultures. In his career, Russell has consulted with top leaders in manufacturing companies, municipal government, banking and retail organizations. He has implemented solutions that increased employee retention in the information systems arena, created improved career ladders for public safety professionals, enhanced job satisfaction for bank operations employees, and aligned management focus in the retail sector.
His expertise in motivation and rewards programs have resulting in the design and successful implementation of sales incentive plans, team compensation systems, executive pay programs and comprehensive performance management tools.
While in the banking industry, Russell worked on over 60 merger and acquisitions and developed key capabilities in project management, change management, process engineering, and communications. He co-lead a international, cross-disciplinary project team that created a single post-merger compensation system for an 180,000 employee organization. His work in redesigning a supermarket retailer’s performance management tool helped to reduce product waste by over 50% and nearly double company net margin.
Since 2005, Russell has enjoyed focusing on small business and has honed his skills in family business matters, partnership disputes and other challenges unique to small privately owned companies.
Russell holds the Senior Professional in Human Resources designation from the Society of Human Resources Management and earned the Certified Compensation Professional designation from World at Work (now expired). Russell attended the University of North Carolina on the prestigious Morehead-Cain Scholarship and graduated with a Bachelor’s in Industrial Relations.