Andrew (Andy) Russ, CPA

Andrew Fred Russ, CPA, helps founder-led and family-owned businesses get their numbers right before buying or selling. Most people know him as Andy. As a Partner at R Squared Advisors, he leads quality of earnings and financial diligence for the firm. Andy Fred Russ is also Principal of Russ CPA, his Texas CPA firm. Before he advised owners, he spent 25 years at a $50B+ consumer-facing company. He started there in hourly store operations while he was still in school and rose to Vice President of Planning & Analysis.

Quality of Earnings and Deal Readiness

R Squared Advisors works with founder-led and family-owned businesses navigating transactions, growth, and financial complexity. The firm provides quality of earnings (QoE), financial diligence, accounting cleanup, fractional CFO support, and buy-side and sell-side advisory. Andrew Fred Russ helps owners understand their numbers, prepare for diligence, and navigate the financial side of buying or selling a company.

Through Russ CPA, he also provides quality-of-earnings and transaction diligence services directly to clients. He helps owners get a business ready to sell and clean up their books so the numbers are credible when diligence starts. He also provides fractional CFO support and item-level profitability work, which comes down to knowing which products actually make money.

Andy Fred Russ spent more than two decades planning, forecasting, and analyzing performance for a large, complex business. He brings that experience to each engagement.

His Corporate Finance Career

Russ started in store operations. He worked front-line roles through high school and college, from 1996 to 2002. In 2001, he also interned with Deloitte in Assurance, IT, and Risk Consulting.

After graduation, he moved into finance. From 2002 to 2008, he held analyst and finance manager roles with growing scope across multiple business divisions. From 2008 to 2015, he held Director and Senior Director roles in Planning & Analysis for Store Operations. In those roles, he led finance and strategy as the company expanded into a major new market. Later, the Texas operating divisions relied on him for financial infrastructure, annual planning, reporting, and multi-year roadmaps.

From 2016 to 2023, Andrew Fred Russ was Head of Merchant Planning & Analytics, with Senior Director and Managing Director titles. He was the merchandising organization's senior financial and analytical partner. He also advised the senior executive committee regularly on financial performance, trends, and strategic planning.

He was named Vice President of Planning & Analysis in 2024 and held the role until 2026. In that job, Andy Fred Russ led more than 100 people across finance, analytics, data science, and pricing. He ran enterprise planning for U.S. and international operations. That covered the annual plan, the five-year plan, and the weekly forecast for a company with 60 officers and more than 400 locations.

What He Built Inside the Company

Much of his corporate work meant building something that did not exist yet. Russ started two company-wide teams from scratch. One covers cost of goods. The other covers decision science and data. The company kept both as permanent parts of its structure.

He also built the company's first item-level merchant profit and loss statement (P&L). It gave buyers and store leaders one consistent view of how they were doing. It also moved 100 buyers and 400 store leaders off offline spreadsheets.

When a division was losing money, Andrew Fred Russ served as principal strategist on its turnaround. The business went on to strong profitability. He also ran the numbers for five company-wide price investments over two years. Each one paid for itself through cost savings.

How He Leads Teams

Developing people sits at the center of how Andy Fred Russ leads. He created a leadership development program for his whole department and ran it himself. In two years, it produced five director promotions, one senior director promotion, and seven manager promotions. Team retention improved over the same stretch.

He sums up his approach in a few ideas. He develops people and builds teams. He brings order to chaos. He also works to democratize intelligence, his phrase for getting the right insight to decision-makers at the moment it matters most.

Degrees and CPA License

Russ holds an MBA in Finance and Economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. At Texas State University, he earned a BBA in Accounting and a BBA in Computer Information Systems, with Honors. Texas State also gave him the LBJ Outstanding Senior Award. He has been a licensed CPA in Texas since 2003.

Serving on Boards

Andrew Fred Russ has spent much of his career on nonprofit and university boards. He served on the advisory board of the Texas State University McCoy College of Business for 20 years and was its Chair from 2021 to 2025. As an Eagle Scout, he found personal meaning in chairing the Audit Committee of the Boy Scouts of America, Alamo Area Council, from 2018 to 2022. Since 2022, he has been a Trustee of the San Antonio Botanical Garden and sits on its Finance & Executive Committee.

He volunteers at his local church. In San Antonio, he has supported Oak Hills Church. In Houston, he has supported First Baptist Church and MDPC Church.

When He Is Not Working

Andy Fred Russ was raised in Austin. Today he calls Alamo Heights, Texas, home. He is a husband, a son, and a girl dad. He is also dog dad to Dutch, an English Cream Golden Retriever.

Free time usually means a run, a mountain, a ski slope, or a trip in the works. He has finished 14 marathons, including New York, Marine Corps, Houston, and Seattle. He also completed Disney's Goofy Challenge, a half marathon one day and a full marathon the next. He has climbed several of Colorado's 14ers, and Half Dome in Yosemite is still his most memorable hike. He skis, rides a bike, and is a CrossFit regular.

Travel has taken him to Oktoberfest in Munich and to ski the Swiss and French Alps. He has also spent summers with family in Chicago. A lifelong learner, Andrew Fred Russ plans each new race, climb, and trip as carefully as he plans at work, and with the same curiosity.

Connect with Andy Fred Russ on LinkedIn.