George. Spafford

Current

• Senior Manager at Cognizant Technology Solutions
• President and CEO at Spafford Global Consulting

Past

• VP of Publishing at IT Process Institute
• IT Director at IPC Print Services
• Manager at KPMG Consulting (now BearingPoint)

• Director of Development at Lionbridge
• Technology Manager at IPC Communication Services

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2 more...

Education

• Washington State University
• ITSM Academy
• University of Notre Dame - Mendoza College of Business

• Notre Dame
• Michigan State University
• Konan Daigaku

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3 more...

Recommended

14 people have recommended George.

Connections

250 connections

Industry

Information Technology and Services

George. Spafford’s Summary

George is a senior manager with Cognizant and an experienced practitioner in business and IT operations. He is a prolific author and speaker, and has consulted and conducted training on regulatory compliance, IT Governance, and process improvement in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and China. Publications include: "The Governance of Green IT", "Greening the Data Center" and co-authorship of “The Visible Ops Handbook" and “Visible Ops Security”.

George holds an MBA from Notre Dame, a BA in Materials and Logistics Management from Michigan State University and an honorary degree from Konan Daigaku in Japan. He is a ITIL Service Manager, TOCICO Jonah and a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA). George is a current member of the IIA, ISACA, ITPI, ITSMF, and the TOCICO.

George. Spafford’s Specialties:

Consulting on the strategic use of IT, professional author, strategy, IT governance, IT process improvement, ITIL v2 and v3, CISA, Theory of Constraints (TOC) Jonah, ISO 27001:2005, ISO 27002:2005, COBIT, regulatory compliance, compliance frameworks, and training.

George. Spafford’s Experience

• Senior Manager

  Cognizant Technology Solutions

  (Public Company; CTSH; Outsourcing/Offshoring industry)

  July 2006 — Present (3 years 5 months)

  Consult on:
  - IT Strategy including the use of the Goal to Objective Mapping methodology and Theory of Constraints (TOC)
  - The use of ITIL to optimize IT effectiveness and efficiency
  - Information Security - how to make it sustainable and such that it adds value vs. purely being a cost of doing business.
  - Control frameworks and control design including COBIT and industry best practices in order to manage risks while achieving high performance
  
  Note: Cognizant acquired Pepperweed Advisors on 9/3/09.

• President and CEO

  Spafford Global Consulting

  (Management Consulting industry)

  January 2002 — Present (7 years 11 months)

  + Consulting on Green IT, ITIL, Information Security and Strategic Management
  + Published "The Governance of Green IT" and "Greening the Data Center"
  + Co-author of "The Visible Ops Handbook" and "Visible Ops Security"
  + Co-author of the forthcoming IIA Global Technology Audit Guide (GTAG) on Information Security Governance. This guide provides Board-level guidance about the role of the Board and the CAE in the utilization of information security.
  + Author of the "Governance of Green IT", which covers process considerations and how to leverage ITIL
  + Author of "Greening the Data Center", which is intended to provide a senior manager / CIO with ideas on where to deploy staff
  + Perform IT audits as a certified information services auditor (CISA)
  + Provide training on numerous topics including the strategic use of IT, green IT, process improvement and regulatory compliance.
  + Creation and evaluation of processes and control frameworks in IT leveraging COBIT, ISO 27001 and ITIL.
  + Authored over 200 articles for various publishers. Links to many of the articles are at http://www.spaffordconsulting.com/articles.html.
  + Articles and books have been translated into numerous languages including Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Polish, Portuguese and Italian.

• VP of Publishing

  IT Process Institute

  (Non-Profit; 1-10 employees; Management Consulting industry)

  January 2004 — January 2006 (2 years 1 month)

  + Jointly authored the Visible Ops handbook with Kevin Behr and Gene Kim. The Handbook outlines a methodology integrating change management, configuration management and release management as a means to jumpstart an ITIL implementation.
  + Co-authored numerous articles on process improvement and ITIL with Gene Kim.
  + Assisted in the creation of the web publishing process and business models.
  + Conducted extensive research into the best practices of IT operations, security and audit.

• IT Director

  IPC Print Services

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; JRN; Printing industry)

  April 2001 — September 2004 (3 years 6 months)

  + Generated millions of dollars of cost savings and revenue enablement through technology driven processes.
  + Planned and implemented an IT governance program utilizing COBIT, ITIL and ISO 17799.
  + Responsible for IT BCP strategy and implementation.
  + IT governance subject matter expert for IPC's parent company JCI.
  + Directed development, network engineering, end user support and security teams.
  + Implemented software engineering and project management processes.
  + Customs compliance officer for NAFTA and overall exports due to logistics and legal background.

• Manager

  KPMG Consulting (now BearingPoint)

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; BE; Information Technology and Services industry)

  July 2000 — April 2001 (10 months)

  + Consulted on open source ethical competitive intelligence.
  + Managed a Vignette implementation and migration.
  + Reviewed development practices and provided suggested improvements.

• Director of Development

  Lionbridge

  (Public Company; 201-500 employees; LIOX; Information Technology and Services industry)

  November 1998 — May 2000 (1 year 7 months)

  + Directed the development team in the creation and continued development of the an automated workflow and content management system.
  + Architected systems integrations between diverse customer systems and Lionbridge.
  + Directed consultants in the globalization of web sites addressing tactical and strategic issues surrounding localization and internationalization issues.
  + Provided presales technical support relative to architecture and I18N.
  + Worked extensively on new business development due to a close relationship with sales.
  + Investigated new technologies in order to determine their impacts on the organization.

• Technology Manager

  IPC Communication Services

  (Information Technology and Services industry)

  1991 — 1998 (7 years )

George. Spafford’s Education

• Washington State University

  Theory of Constraints 2007 — 2008

  Attended Dr. James Holt's renowned classes on the applications of the Theory of Constraints (EM530) and the TOC Thinking Processes (EM526). The latter is an accredited class by the TOCICO for the Jonah accreditation.

• ITSM Academy

  ITIL 2006 — 2006

  Activities and Societies:

  Obtained ITIL Foundation, ITIL Practitioner Release and Control (IPRC) and Service Manager certifications.

• University of Notre Dame - Mendoza College of Business

  MBA , 1997 — 1998

• Notre Dame

  MBA , Business , September 1996 — May 1998

• Michigan State University

  BA , Materials and Logistics Management , September 1987 — June 1990

  I left MSU for one year to study in Japan.

  Activities and Societies:

  Materials and Logistics Management - Operations, Certificate in Asian Studies Japan

• Konan Daigaku

  Honorary , Japanese Language, Culture and Business , September 1988 — May 1989

  Activities and Societies:

  Japanese language, culture, business and education studies. Field trips to many companies, cultural sites, etc.