About Me
Personal Life
I’m Russ Criddle, Founder of Sidekicks Advisory Partners. I’m a husband and father of four. After meeting my wife Emily at Utah State University and completing our Bachelor’s Degrees there, our next adventure took us to Arizona where I completed a Master of Taxation degree at Arizona State University. We were surrounded by good people and loved most everything about Arizona, so we decided to stay a while. Six years later, it felt like time for a change. We moved to Idaho and have been here ever since. When I’m not working, I enjoy following professional and college basketball, playing golf, watching movies, playing cards and board games, spending time with my family (aka: “chasing my four awesome kiddos and trying to enjoy every minute”), and reading (after years of researching work topics, I’ve finally discovered the joy of reading for “fun”).
Work Experience
Following completion of my “formal” education, my career began in a family office setting. Here I was stretched to apply and extend my learning as we strived to serve high-net-worth families with varying needs including estate and financial planning, tax compliance and consulting, and investment advisory services. I enjoyed piecing together the “puzzles” that came with advising clients in all aspects of their financial journey and the inter-workings of how their wealth could be a benefit to future generations and fulfill philanthropic desires.
My next career stop was with a software provider in the healthcare market that was striving for accelerated growth followed by a planned sale. Over the years that followed, we were able to work with multiple investment banking and venture capital firms as we made strides to grow. Growth included software implementations, the acquisition of a smaller software company, and leadership and organizational changes. Nine years later, we were acquired by a venture capital firm as part of a merger with another company. That merger moved the department I was working in to Kansas City. With an offer on the table at the new firm, our family considered a move to Missouri far more seriously than I ever would have expected, but ultimately we decided to stay in Idaho.
An opportunity to work in real estate development shaped the next 10 years of my career. We developed and operated facilities in multiple industries including education, hospitality, multi-family, and self-storage. Ambitious owners and team members pushed each other to accomplish things that other firms claimed were “impossible”. It was my pleasure to serve in multiple executive level positions here, including CFO, COO, and President. These positions afforded me the opportunity to work with and learn from talented individuals with backgrounds in Finance, IT, HR, Sales, Marketing, Development, Architecture, Hospitality operations, and a myriad of others. My time here helped stretch me to learn how to apply my skills in multiple industries with people who possessed a wide range of personal skill sets.
After 10 exciting years in real estate development, I felt it was time for a change. After working in an advisory role with multiple companies, several members of my business and personal networks encouraged me to “do my own thing,” and Sidekicks Advisory Partners was born!
