Success By Ten: George Russell's Top Ten Elements to Building a Billion-Dollar Business

George F. Russell, Jr., who built a billion-dollar global investment services firm on a foundation of 10 personal principles, has written a book explaining the inside story of how these simple lessons guided him and others toward success. Success By Ten: George Russell’s Top Ten Elements to Building a Billion Dollar Business (Wiley; December 2009;$24.95) , describes the origins, risks, and decision-making involved in development of Frank Russell Company, the pioneering pension consulting firm that created the Russell stock indices and a global array of investment products and services.

“These are the lessons I wish I’d been taught in business school. It would have saved me a lot of time and trouble,” said Mr. Russell. “I hope that these stories will help future generations of business leaders find the right path more quickly and easily than I did.” 

The four-decade history of Frank Russell Company (known today as Russell Investments) is intertwined with Mr. Russell’s matter-of-fact storytelling and insights. His anecdotes about non-negotiable integrity, hiring smarter people, recognizing luck and having fun at work are treasured lore for those who worked alongside him during the past 40 years. Now Mr. Russell is sharing his favorite lessons at a time when many entrepreneurs, business leaders and civic-minded philanthropists are questioning what it takes to be successful during challenging times. 

Mr. Russell is well known throughout the investment industry as the original pension consultant who led Frank Russell Company in a stream of investment industry innovations. While some of his ideas remained conceptual, many others gave way to enduring advancements in performance measurement, investment manager diversification, investment style analysis and international investing. Many of the core disciplines in today’s investment advisory and financial planning practices are outgrowths of the ideas that Mr. Russell introduced to institutional investors during the 1970s and 1980s. Together, these innovations helped create higher professional standards in the investment community and greater financial security for investors. In a time when financial security has become more important than ever, Mr. Russell’s 10 lessons provide timely and truthful reminders of personal business values that never go out of style.