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Mike Russell

@mikerussell

Global FinOps Architect at Nissan who built its first enterprise FinOps capability and delivered approximately $38M in validated cloud savings.

United States

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At Nissan Motor Corporation, I built Nissan’s first enterprise FinOps capability, establishing the North American operating model and extending governance and best practices to Japan and Europe. I generated approximately $38M in cumulative validated cloud savings and financial benefits while cloud investment continued to grow.

I aligned Engineering, Finance, and Procurement around better technology investment decisions, drawing on hands-on AWS architecture experience and work across infrastructure, enterprise architecture, and technology strategy. I’m a FinOps Certified Professional, FinOps for AI certified, and a FOCUS Analyst.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Global FinOps Architect / Lead

Nissan Motor Corporation

Nov 2019 - Jan 2026 (6 years 2 months)

Built and led Nissan's first enterprise FinOps capability, establishing the North American operating model and extending governance to Japan and Europe. Delivered approximately $38M in cumulative validated cloud savings and financial benefits.

Senior Strategist

Nissan Motor Corporation

Jun 2012 - Nov 2019 (7 years 5 months)

Developed enterprise technology standards and strategic roadmaps by engaging Engineering, Infrastructure, Operations, Security, and business stakeholders. Helped shape Nissan's early private-cloud strategy and supported initial AWS adoption.

Enterprise Architecture technology strategy Cloud Governance AWS Cloud Adoption Architecture Reviews Vendor Management

Infrastructure Delivery & Distributed Systems Lead

Nissan Motor Corporation

Jul 2009 - Jun 2012 (2 years 11 months)

Built Nissan's end-to-end Infrastructure Delivery model, later adopted enterprise-wide and used as the governance foundation for cloud adoption and FinOps. Led outsourced infrastructure delivery teams and served as primary liaison to HP Fulfillment Management.

Infrastructure Delivery Distributed Systems Governance Vendor Management Outsourcing

Infrastructure Architect / Lead

Nissan Motor Corporation

Jul 2006 - Jul 2009 (3 years)

Led the migration from IBM data center services to HP within a 90-day transition window and designed an IBM TDFM-based storage migration strategy that delivered approximately $5M in cost avoidance.

Infrastructure Architecture Migration Storage Cost Avoidance IBM

Regional Server Lead

IBM

Jan 2003 - Jul 2006 (3 years 6 months)

Led regional server operations, SLA performance, and high-severity incident response for Nissan under a managed-services agreement.

Server Operations SLA Management Incident Response Managed Services

Systems Engineer

En Pointe Technologies

Jan 1999 - Jan 2003 (4 years)

Supported Nissan manufacturing and enterprise infrastructure; selected to relocate to Canton, Mississippi as a primary site infrastructure resource supporting the new manufacturing facility's launch preparations.

Infrastructure Support Manufacturing Enterprise Infrastructure