Robert Russell is Counselor to the President at The Heritage Foundation.

In this capacity, he provides marketing and financial direction and services to the think tank – including the Heritage 10 and Heritage 25 fundraising campaigns in addition to its annual marketing and fundraising planning sessions.

Russell also helped establish the Heritage Legacy Society and Heritage's Community Committees, where Heritage members can meet locally to discuss key issues and plan local events designed to advance the conservative agenda.  He has performed numerous special Heritage management and marketing research projects as well as four major donor market surveys that have been instrumental in guiding Heritage's direct marketing and major grants fundraising programs.

Russell is also head of Robert Russell & Associates, a Chicago-based marketing and financial services consulting firm that he founded in 1976. The firm is devoted to strengthening non-profit businesses and organizations, particularly those devoted to free-market principles and programs, limited government, and strong national defense. It has worked with more than 300 organizations around the world and maintained long term relationships with such organizations as Heritage, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Hillsdale College, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, St. Edward's School, and many others. 

Before founding his firm, Russell began his marketing and advertising career with the Armstrong Cork Company and later gained institutional experience as a member of the corporate team which built the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. His association with Heritage began in 1982 and he was named Counselor in 1986.

Russell is a graduate from Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind., where he drove a laundry truck and worked as a disc jockey to pay for his education. Russell also served in the Army in military counterintelligence and took courses the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. 

A resident of Geneva, Ill., Russell has been active on the boards of the Heartland Institute, the Philadelphia Society, House Speaker Dennis Hastert's Congressional Club, the Friends of Marva Collins Foundation, the Philadelphia Society, the National Association of Wabash Men, the Mayor's Commission of Geneva, and St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Geneva.   He and his wife, Ruth, have two children and three grandchildren.