FEI Austin - March 2026 Dinner Meeting - "Battle of the CFO & CIO Panel"

Russ Finney is an award-winning assistant professor of instruction and the director of MIS undergraduate programs at The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business where he teaches technology & business strategy. He is also the past chair of the UT faculty council information technology committee. His primary research areas include strategy, artificial intelligence, and robotics. 

Recently, he produced the Business at the Speed of Innovation podcast which can be found here on YouTube. 

In addition, he is also an advisory partner at a number of outside firms where he assists with research and client engagement projects. He is a former CIO in the semiconductor, aerospace, and financial services industries where he focused on manufacturing, engineering, defense products, core banking, and investment trading. 

In 2016, Russ was named by Apollo Research as one of the Top 5 most highly followed US CIO influencers through social media (@rfinney on X). In both 2021 and 2023, he was named to the Texas McCombs faculty honor roll for excellence in teaching. He began his career working with Ernst & Young.

Richard Shields is a professional finance executive with significant experience in high growth companies. He has been CFO of four public companies, including several multi-billion dollar companies publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.  He currently serves as CFO of Arrive Logistics,  which is ranked by the Austin Business Journal as the largest private company in Austin by revenue in its most recent survey. He previously served as the CFO for YETI Coolers for 3 years in preparing that company for its successful initial public offering. He has raised over $5 billion in capital, including credit facilities, term debt, private equity and public markets transactions. He has significant M&A experience in both buy and sell side transactions. Mr. Shields earned a BA in business from Eastern Washington University, and an MBA from the University of Notre Dame.  He is a licensed certified public accountant. He currently chairs the board of directors at Goodwill Industries of Central Texas.