Jack Levis

Biographical Profile

Director of Process Management for UPS

Education

B.A. Psychology, California State University Northridge, 1981; Masters Certificate, Project Management, George Washington University, 2000

Professional Experience

United Parcel Service (1976-present)

Since joining UPS as a part-time loader, my 33 year career has given me significant experience in both operations and staff functions. Productivity improvements through process innovation have been the central focus of my career. I have been a champion of Operations Research as an end user, O.R. division head, and senior corporate manager.

My current responsibilities as a Director of Engineering involve creating and executing a vision for operations planning, execution, and control systems. OR/MS is at the heart of that vision and an essential enabler of the process reengineering. The projects that I manage are some of UPS’ largest, most strategically important and business-critical.

INFORMS/ORSA/TIMS Activities

INFORMS Member (2009) INFORMS Roundtable (2000-2006)

• Executive Committee
• Meetings Committee

INFORMS Practice Conference

• Advisory Council (2006-present)
• Conference Chair (2007)
• Invited Speaker (multiple years)

INFORMS Meeting Committee

INFORMS International Conference Plenary Speaker (2007)

Professional Honors & Awards

The groups and projects that I have led received the following awards:

• Gartner Business Intelligence Excellence Award Winner (2011)
• Society for Information Management Award (Finalist 2009 – Final position TBD)
• Computerworld Premier 100 Best-in-Class Award (2008)
• CIO 100 Award (2005)
• Technology Managers’ Forum Award (2005)
• Business Technology Optimization Excellence Award –"Optimize for Business Growth" (Winner 2005)
• InfoWorld 100 Top Applications (#1 2004)
• American Business Award for Innovation (2004)
• Edelman Prize (Runner up 2003)
• INFORMS Prize (2003)
• Computerworld Smithsonian (Finalist 1995)

Other Professional Activities

METRANS Advisory Board; George Mason University SE/OR Advisory Board

Position Statement

I have truly enjoyed my time as Vice President of Practice and am honored to be asked to serve again.

Our profession is at a crossroads.

Data is more available than ever, and computing power is power is still growing. Business executives now understand the importance of quantitative analysis and are hungry for professionals that can help them make better decisions.

Studies show that business leaders plan to expand their use of data to gain business insight and make predictions. I am proud that INFORMS leadership has been preparing for this wave of Business Analytics.

We commissioned Capgemini to complete a study of Analytics in practice and have been implementing some of the recommendations. We should all be proud that the Analytics Conference (formerly the Practice Conference) achieved attendance 30% above the previous high. I believe much of this success was due to the changes that stemmed from the study.

I am also pleased that in order to bring Practice and Academia together, we began the George D. Smith prize to recognize an academic department or program for effective preparation of students to be practitioners. It is a significant award that will be presented at the Edelman Gala.

These are good first steps, but we need to continue to adjust in order to meet the demands of a changing business environment.

I will continue to work to make INFORMS the premiere organization for advanced analytics professionals.