Chris M. George

Current

Employee at Big Fish Games

Past

Vice President of Applications at Fox Interactive Media
Director, IT Support Applications at Buy.com
Director / Project Manager at Equative

Senior Software Engineer at Buy.com
Software Engineer at ZAAZ
Web Database Developer at Fluke Corporation
Vice President, Advanced Technology at VerveX Technologies
Software Test Engineer at Microsoft
Web Developer at Accelerated Media

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6 more...

Education

University of Washington

Recommended

18 people have recommended Chris M.

Connections

333 connections

Industry

Internet

Websites

Chris M George Leadership Blog

Chris M. George’s Summary

• Recognized expert in the ecommerce and web database industry. Blend executive management with hands-on understanding of diverse technologies to ensure business remains fundamentally sound, secure, and truly innovative.

• Unrivaled ability to bring strategic vision to fruition. Thrive on tackling complex business problems and driving plan, team, and resources to deliver large-scale, complex, business-driven IT projects under aggressive timelines.

• Reputation for creating competitive advantages through technology transformations that create operating efficiencies, multimillion-dollar cost cuts, new markets and revenue streams, and a better customer experience.

• Positive, respected leader inspiring confidence, credibility, and peak levels of performance. Cool under pressure, decisive, high energy, diplomatic, and quietly confident. Blend vision with pragmatism to achieve dependable results.

Chris M. George’s Specialties:

Strategy Planning & Tactical Execution, Global Project Lifecycle Management, Internet & Ecommerce Business Models, Application Development & Support, Turnaround Project Leadership, Business Process Design & Reengineering, IT Governance & Best Practices, Staff Development & Management, Large-Scale Solution Deployments, P&L, Budget & Resource Management, Offshore Development Operations, SaaS, ASP

Chris M. George’s Experience

Employee

Big Fish Games

(Privately Held; Computer Games industry)

December 2009 — Present (1 month)
Vice President of Applications

Fox Interactive Media

(Public Company; NWS; Internet industry)

April 2008 — August 2009 (1 year 5 months)

Executive leader of application development and support department targeting finance and supply chain. Management scope included budgeting ($2.2 million OpEx, $6.8 million CapEx), staffing, project management, organizational structure, IT governance, and strategy planning. Routinely collaborated with business and IT management executives to align tactical projects with strategic business drivers. Supervised teams as large as twenty-four direct/indirect reports.

• Turned around twice-failed, $6.8 million, multinational project to migrate company from legacy Great Plains application to Oracle Financials, delivering this high-visibility implementation on-time and under-budget.

• Navigated rapid personal learning curve for development best practices specific to Oracle Financials to effectively provide strong leadership and strategic oversight for team.

• Cultivated positive work environment, resulting in cohesive global team that consistently met Oracle project milestones under extreme conditions (tight deadlines, long hours, strained business relationships).

• New system delivered substantial operating efficiencies through automation, scalability, business process enhancements, and robust reporting functionality.

• Led post-mortem team to troubleshoot root cause behind failed attempts to resolve infrastructure problems with Hyperion financial application and innovate/execute new solution.

• Oversaw team of developers and hardware/network engineers in migrating servers to new datacenter, rebuilding servers from scratch, and transferring live production data with zero downtime for business.

• Vastly simplified user maintenance enabling 50% reduction in software maintenance staffing needs.

• Reduced department spend from $4+ million to $1.9 million in a single year while sustaining quality/service levels.
Director, IT Support Applications

Buy.com

(Privately Held; Internet industry)

2001 — 2008 (7 years )

Managed all aspects of developing and maintaining backend application suite including CRM, product management, billing, fraud, targeted marketing, and return logistics systems. Directed twenty member, multi-discipline teams in implementing lifecycle strategic ecommerce projects.

• Spearheaded initiative to transform company from simple end-consumer ecommerce model to enterprise-level ecommerce platform model (implementing virtual private-label websites). Led enterprise project to merge nine distinct product databases into universal database, and was technical manager for on-time/under-budget delivery of three enterprise-level virtual private label ecommerce websites.

• Guided team in rewriting entire proprietary rules-based fraud engine and key elements of billing system and implemented internal payment gateway that allowed unlimited transactions for low annual license fee. Introduced multiple safety measures that halted rampant problems (over/under-charging, fraud, etc.). Reduced chargeback rate 80% (saving nearly $8 million), cut annual credit card gateway processing fees more than 80% (saving $100,000 per year), and slashed rate of double-billing incidents.

• Led high-visibility project to develop scalable service-oriented architecture (SOA) that revolutionized web-based product catalog updates for 2+ million skus across more than a dozen suppliers. Transformed once-daily update process into dynamic real-time updates for as many as 100,000+ data changes per hour. Achieved increased sales, lower customer service costs, and improved customer experience.

• Orchestrated initiatives to nearly double payment methods accepted through ecommerce system from seven to thirteen, significantly increasing sales volume, profit margins, and average order size.
Director / Project Manager

Equative

(Internet industry)

2000 — 2001 (1 year )

Teamed with CTO and peer to innovate comprehensive architecture design and provide needed development oversight for struggling project to build next generation of company’s flagship time and expense application. Interviewed and hired top development staff to ensure fulfillment of milestone delivery dates.
Senior Software Engineer

Buy.com

(Privately Held; Internet industry)

1999 — 2000 (1 year )

Developed and maintained ecommerce platform including high-availability shopping cart and checkout systems that drove high order volumes (up to 90,000 orders per day), generating as much as $5 million in daily revenues.
Software Engineer

ZAAZ

(Public Company; Internet industry)

1999 — 1999 (less than a year)

Oversaw lifecycle technology development projects for variety of Fortune 1000 clients including Microsoft.
Web Database Developer

Fluke Corporation

(Public Company; dhr; Electrical/Electronic Manufacturing industry)

1998 — 1999 (1 year )

Designed multiple custom applications that improved operations in diverse areas of business. Led $500 million company into ecommerce space by architecting and developing cutting-edge, flagship ecommerce website platform from the ground up that enabled seamless sale of products over the web.
Vice President, Advanced Technology

VerveX Technologies

(Internet industry)

1996 — 1998 (2 years )

Hired by CEO to direct all aspects of 15-member development division. Management scope including budgeting, staffing, and lifecycle project management. Delivered world-class customer satisfaction, contributing to record $1.2 million annual revenues. Leveraged extensive experience in web technology to lead transformation of company from traditional client/server application to web database application model. Played key role in hiring top talent to expand organization from three to twenty-two employees in two years, supporting rapid company growth.
Software Test Engineer

Microsoft

(Public Company; MSFT; Computer Software industry)

1996 — 1997 (1 year )

Installed, tested, and improved Microsoft Exchange Web Connector email application. Redesigned entire user interface, significantly increasing usability, familiarity, and efficiency over initial version.
Web Developer

Accelerated Media

(Internet industry)

1995 — 1996 (1 year )

Recruited by CEO for internship and retained to manage all aspects of web development. Built strong website portfolio that created visibility and credibility for this startup business web development company and positioned firm as leader in their market.

Chris M. George’s Education

University of Washington

Bachelor of Science , Technical Communication, emphasis Information Systems , 1991 — 1995

Additional Information

Chris M. George’s Websites:

Chris M George Leadership Blog

Chris M. George’s Interests:

technology, SOA, ASP, ecommerce, merchandising, marketing, SEO, SEM, social networking, efficiency, productivity, success, leadership, long tail, wikinomics, strategy, management, P&L, strap planning, search, SaaS

Chris M. George’s Groups:

Executive Suite
InternetRetailing - for leaders in e-commerce and multichannel retail
Project Management Link - www.pmlink.org
The Enterprise Architecture Network
Information Security Community
Leadership Think Tank
FORUM Leadership
E-Commerce Network
CIO Forum
CXO (CEO, COO, CKO, CFO, CMO, CAO, CVO, CDO, CRO, CLO, CSO & CTO) Community
Etail Careers.com
CIOs.com: Chief Information Officer Network
e-Commerce Solutions
Ecommerce and Online Marketing Experts
CEO/ CIO/COE/COO/CFO/Head/VP/ Director/President Level - Senior Leadership Group
Global Executive Exchange
Fox Interactive Media
Payment and Fraud Professionals
Microsoft - Current and Former Employees
Shop.org Members
Diane Krehbiel Executive and Technology Recruiting
Life Architect
IT & ERP PM
PMO, Tools & Methodologies
Agile & Scrum
Buy.com Alumni