Top CIOs to Watch in 2024

John George

CIO, ICF

John George and his team have made ICF’s IT systems secure and effective, while also making the company a leader in responding to the changing needs of clients and employees. They use advanced technologies to stay ahead and meet the changing demands of citizens, workforce trends and mission goals.

“I am grateful to lead an amazing group of tech professionals dedicated to sustaining a modernized IT organization that supports our ever-expanding client and workforce needs,” George said. “As the lead architect and advocate for my team, I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished together and the innovative ways we’re improving delivery of mission outcomes for ICF and our clients.”

ICF’s growth up to the third quarter of 2023 was 7% more than last year, showing a trend of rising revenue, more contract wins and growing business potential.

The team is starting with small AI projects and gradually moving to bigger ones to fully understand and use AI’s potential. Initially, they’re focusing on creating AI solutions that improve business processes and productivity. The aim is to combine innovation with careful data use to help ICF’s workforce and increase operational efficiency.

Why Watch

In 2024, George and his team will use generative AI to improve ICF’s operations, security, service delivery and program outcomes. They’re enhancing cybersecurity with advanced threat management and AI analytics, benefiting from the expertise of recent acquisitions like SemanticBits.

To strengthen ICF’s cybersecurity posture, they are actively implanting and evolving their global unified threat management, intelligent endpoint protection and AI-based threat analytics. This includes leveraging the expertise gained from the company’s recent acquisitions, including SemanticBits, which earned the 2023 Corporate Growth Deal of the Year award by the Association for Corporate Growth.

Internally, they are improving back-office processes so employees can focus on client work. This includes using advanced cloud-based data systems to better manage and analyze data for deeper insights and analysis.