Biography

Randi Shade, 42, was recently elected to Austin City Council Place 3. She has lived in Austin for more than 18 years, working in the public, private and nonprofit sector. Randi has served as the Executive Director of the Austin Entrepreneurs Foundation, and as CEO of Charitygift, an Internet company she founded in 1999 and sold to a publicly traded company in 2005. Randi's career in public service includes four years in the Governor's Office (1992 – 1996) as the founding Executive Director of the Texas Commission on Volunteerism & Community Service, during which time she launched and managed the AmeriCorps program statewide. Under Randi's leadership Texas was awarded more money than any other state ($55 million). Randi also worked as a fundraising coordinator on the successful 1990 Ann Richards gubernatorial campaign and has also previously worked for City Year, Teach for America, and Procter & Gamble. She is a Plan II Honors graduate of the University of Texas, where she was elected to serve as student body president. Randi later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. Randi has always been an active community volunteer and has served on the boards of the Association of Women in Technology – Austin, Austin Clean Energy Initiative, Austin Entrepreneurs Foundation, Central Texas Better Business Bureau, Foundation for Women's Resources Committee of the Board, Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, Leadership Austin, OneStar Foundation, PeopleFund, Sigma Delta Tau Sorority’s Texas Education Foundation, TexChange, Texas Hillel Foundation, UT Commission on 125, and the Volunteer Center (now Hands on Central Texas). Randi and her partner, Kayla Shell, an attorney and Dell executive, live in the Clarksville neighborhood and are the proud parents of a toddler son named Ethan and an infant daughter named Emme.