Harriet L. Russell

Harriet L. Russell is a cross-cultural strategist, keynote speaker, author, and CEO of Business Ease Overseas, with a career spanning more than four decades in intercultural communication. Russell has supported individuals and organizations in navigating cultural complexities, from working on Wall Street in New York City to serving as the sole consultant-translator for ABC News at the G7 Tokyo Economic Summit, and traveling to Minsk at the invitation of the U.S. State Department.

Russell was the first foreigner to receive a master's degree in linguistics from the Japanese campus of Sophia University, a distinction that brought her significant media attention before the age of 30. Her international experience includes traveling the Silk Route overland for six months through the Middle East to Asia at age 24. She has lived in Spain, Japan, and Kyrgyzstan, and has traveled to more than 60 countries. Fluent in several foreign languages, Russell brings a deep understanding of cultural influences to her work with executives and multicultural teams at global corporations, including Sony Corp., Alcoa, BASF, BMW, Bridgestone, Dell, Goodyear, and Owens-Corning. She has served as an adjunct professor of intercultural business communications and Japanese language at Baldwin Wallace College in Ohio and as an adjunct professor at Tsuda College in Tokyo.

Russell is the author of "Doing Business with Ease Overseas: Building Cross-Cultural Relationships That Last," which was selected for addition to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. She has written works in three languages. Her expertise in cross-cultural business has been featured in interviews with NBC, ABC, CBS, Crain's Business, and Asahi Shimbun Daily, among other outlets.

In addition to her business and academic work, Russell incorporates mindfulness into her practice. She served as program director for eight years at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Massachusetts, the largest residential wellness retreat and program center in the United States, where she trained thousands in stress management, health, and wellness using East-West approaches including yoga, mindfulness, and body-mind sciences. This background informs her approach to conflict resolution and stress management in international business and cross-cultural communications.

Russell's humanitarian work includes recognition from the Fulbright Commission for promoting educational exchanges and cross-cultural business initiatives, and she received the Paul Harris Fellow Award from Rotary International. She was awarded a U.S. Speaker Grant by the State Department to present at the Bel-Biz Entrepreneurship Forum, Belarus Coach University, the Credit Union Association, and the U.S. Embassy in Minsk on cross-cultural communications and small business development. In Kyrgyzstan, Russell trained small business entrepreneurs, taught stress management to social workers, coached English language teachers, and founded an English language library, continuing to support these efforts through her Venture From the Heart nonprofit fund. She is a member of the National Speakers Association, an ambassador for the Virtual Speakers Association International, and has presented at Global Speakers Summits worldwide.