1936 — Our company started simply, when Frank Russell opened his brokerage firm in Tacoma, Washington.

1958 — George Russell, fresh from Harvard Business School, joined his grandfather's business 22 years later. After just a few months, Frank died unexpectedly, leaving George and one assistant as the total staff. George didn't falter. For 10 years, he built our company into a successful money management business.

1969 — George identified a need—companies required help determining which money managers were the best at managing pension investments. George developed an evaluation process and pitched it to JC Penney. The era of institutional investment consulting began. And JC Penney is still a client today. To expand George's idea to other American businesses, the company opened a New York office. In five short years, we acquired 40 major U.S. clients.

1979 — It was time to go international. George hired Jan Twardowski to open an office in London and our global commitment began.

1980 — We started managing money directly for institutions rather than simply providing advice. Our assets under management (AUM) began to grow.

1984 — Our researchers saw a need for a better measurement of money manager success. So they created the Russell Indexes—benchmarks that are used more today than all other institutional indexes combined.

1986 — Our global expansion continued, with new offices in Tokyo and Sydney.

1990 — Six months after the Berlin Wall fell, George founded Russell 20-20 to connect countries in need of capital with influential money managers and financial experts.

1993 — George appointed Mike Phillips as our CEO, only the third CEO since 1936.

1999 — Northwestern Mutual, the largest provider of individual life insurance in the U.S., acquired us, but our name, management, office locations, investment approach, and company culture remained intact. In fact, that was the same year we received honors as number 15 on the Fortune Magazine "Best Companies to Work for in America" list. 

2003 — Craig Ueland was appointed president in July 2003 and then became our fourth CEO, effective January 2004.

2004 — We reached US$100 billion in assets under management this year. By the end of 2004, our AUM rose to $134 billion. This is also when we acquired Pantheon, the global private equity fund-of-funds specialist headquartered in London, and the Australian HR services operation of Towers Perrin in August—a move that added more than 270 Russell associates to our ranks and enabled us to offer an unmatched array of investment and administrative services.

2005 — We began our Focused Giving Initiative by committing new philanthropic dollars to support projects that address financial literacy and children.

2007 — Our market-leading family of U.S. equity indexes went global with the launch of the Russell Global Indexes. And we were proud to be ranked number 30 on Fortune Magazine's "Best Companies to Work For in America" list. In addition, we surpassed US$220 billion in assets under management (AUM) by midsummer.

2009 — Russell names Andrew S. Doman president and CEO.

2010 — Russell opens new headquarters office in Seattle, Washington.

2011 — Russell names Len Brennan president and CEO.