George D. Schindler is what many in the industry call a “lifer.” He joined American Management Systems out of college as a coder, stayed through its acquisition by CGI in 2004, and ultimately rose to CEO.
Now on CGI’s board of directors after leading the company from 2016 to 2024, Schindler attributes his success to staying open to opportunities, not following a rigid path.
He moved laterally, vertically, and at times, backward, to gain the experience and perspective he needed to lead. “It was about being in a culture and a surrounding that enabled me to continue to grow,” Schindler told WashingtonExec.
Even before he took his career leaps, Schindler was driven by growth opportunities, surrounded by innovation and drawn to continuous learning.
An Early Appreciation for Education
Schindler grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a community he finds similar to his home of Montreal while serving as CGI CEO. “Both cultures have a very strong work ethic, discipline and sense of innovation,” he says. “Pittsburgh has moved from a steel town to a hub for both medicine and technology.”
Schindler’s upbringing and parents heavily influenced him. He calls them the “ultimate STEAM,” representing science, technology, engineering, art and math. His dad, an electrical engineer with multiple patents, and his mother, a high school English teacher focused on the arts, both valued education. After retiring, his dad also became an adjunct professor at a Pennsylvania State University branch campus.
Schindler was well-rounded — he played baseball, ran track and played trumpet in the school band, drawn to a mix of physical activity, arts and technology. Good at math, he enjoyed solving problems and connecting the dots, which led to his strong interest in computers when he was introduced to them in high school.
“Logic, innovation, problem-solving — to me, what was there not to love?” Schindler says. “Once I really got exposed to the power of technology, I was hooked.”
Schindler’s father participated in the establishment of the computer science department at the University of Pittsburgh in the early 1960s, around the time of Schindler’s birth. He collaborated with a former Purdue University Professor, as Purdue had recently launched the first computer science department in the U.S. in 1962.
“That was a big influence on my decision about why I selected Purdue,” Schindler says. He attended the university to study computer science. “It just naturally went to my talents and dovetailed with intellectual curiosity. It was relatively new.”
At Purdue, Schindler was in the first computer science class to go beyond punch cards. Seeing these technological shifts firsthand reinforced the importance of innovation and education instilled in him from a young age.
“Both my parents underscored the value of education and instilled in each of us children the value of what I would call intellectual curiosity,” Schindler says, “the need to be a continuous learner in both business and life.”
The importance of education shaped his career and leadership style, ensuring that continuous learning and intellectual curiosity became core values within the organization.
A Work Ethic That Takes You Places
Schindler held various jobs throughout college to help pay for his college loans, from groundskeeper to McDonald’s employee. “This was the hard work to get things done,” he says. When he graduated, computer scientists were in demand, and many companies came to Purdue to recruit.
Schindler was heavily recruited by several technology firms but chose American Management Systems in the Washington, D.C.- area. “I was in love with the problem-solving and what the solutions could provide people,” he says. “I wasn’t really in love with a computer.”
Though the technology was cutting edge, Schindler’s upbringing made him more focused on how computers could be applied to help people.
“AMS was doing that,” he says. “They were doing it primarily for the U.S. federal government on how you could use the tools to help better the mission. That really spoke to me.” He started his career as a developer and coder for AMS and even built some government systems in those early days that CGI still maintains today.
A self-proclaimed “lifer,” Schindler has stayed with the company since joining after university, continuing through its acquisition by CGI in 2004.
He never intended to stay in one company forever. “It was really about being in a culture and a surrounding that enabled me to continue to grow, and that’s what happened,” he says.
In his AMS career, Schindler wanted three things: a knowledge-driven culture where he could learn and grow, a company with growth and opportunities, and an environment offering rewards through promotions and increasing responsibility.
“It really comes back to continuous learning,” he says. “I was in a culture where sharing was valued, and so I was able to have that to learn and grow.”
An Upwards, Sideways and ⏤ at Times ⏤ Backwards Trajectory
Schindler embraced diverse roles — whether lateral, backward or upward. He moved between government and commercial sectors, rotated locations and seized new opportunities. He led the company’s New York office, spent a few years in Ottawa, Canada, while starting his family, and eventually settled in Montreal during his tenure as COO and CEO.
“Don’t be constrained by the traditional narrow,” he says. “I worked in different opportunities. I helped build some software; I went into R&D in AMS and participated in creating intellectual property. I helped build a solution, then became the top salesman for that solution, then had to implement the first iterations of that solution,” he explains.
A start in government also gave Schindler experience working in a large, complex, structured environment. He also values the mission orientation of the government — it keeps him grounded and reminds him of the impact the company is making.
“It gives you a good foundation for working with a large bank or a large global company,” he says. “Our commercial clients value the work we do for governments, and investors even see it that way. Investors recognize that that’s a complex environment, and so they bestow some value in that.”
Eventually, Schindler got to a certain point in his career where he naturally learned how to manage vertically and manage his teams well. “You’re good at making sure that status is sent up the chain and that you learn to manage more vertically, but when you get into that C-suite, it is a suite, it is a team, it is an executive committee, and the peer collaboration becomes more important,” he says.
Following the acquisition, Schindler led CGI’s U.S. strategy and growth for commercial and government clients. He also oversaw the company’s Canadian operations, managed its banking and investments intellectual property portfolio and ran operations in the Greater New York region.
From 2006 to 2011, Schindler served as president of CGI Federal, leading a $1 billion acquisition that expanded U.S. capabilities and scale. He then became president and chief operating officer of CGI before being appointed CEO.
While progressing in the C-suite, Schindler was still continuously learning how to work horizontally with leadership, peers and clients. “As I continued to progress in the C-suite and become the CEO, my colleagues and I continued to learn from new experiences – for example, when the pandemic occurred, it was important to be able to share with other CEOs — both competitors and partners and clients —because we were all learning how to respond in real-time.”
Becoming CEO wasn’t always part of Schindler’s plan, but his focus on learning, growth and impacting others through coaching and mentoring naturally led him there.
“I was eminently prepared for it when the opportunity came,” he says.
His growth, experiences and client relationships ultimately prepared him to step into the role when the opportunity arose.
“I always urge people, get out of your comfort zone and don’t just try to do it the traditional way,” Schindler says. Though it may seem like Schindler took the traditional path from coder to CEO, he emphasizes that the journey was anything but straightforward.
Success as CEO and Beyond
On paper, Schindler’s impact as CGI’s CEO is clear. Since 2016, he has driven the company’s “Build and Buy” growth strategy, strengthening CGI’s market position.
Under his leadership, CGI also announced its climate commitment to net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. “We only have one planet, and so we’re making sure that we’re doing our part,” Schindler says. This began with CGI making all its data centers fully sustainable, leading to more intentional work travel and a focus on “green coding.”
Yet Schindler doesn’t point to just one specific success. “It’s always a team that comes together and makes things happen,” he says. “What I like is the impact that we can have on our clients and on our clients’ customers . . . not just our direct clients that you’re working for a bank, but what’s that bank doing for an underserved area of the community? It’s their customers, which then, of course, can translate to society as a whole.”
For instance, CGI partners with the State Department to issue over 21 million passports and travel documents annually. “That’s impact,” Schindler says. “We work with banks, we do trade finance and we do payments. We do $21 trillion in payments daily to ensure global trade occurs. We work with 10 different countries across Europe to help companies deliver energy services to communities. We manage 100 million metering transactions a day. That’s what I love.”
CGI also does health insurance plans. When Schindler’s father retired and turned to Medicare, Schindler recalls him noting how useful the website was. “I’m like, ‘Dad, we built that,’” Schindler says. These full-circle moments stick with him.
“We’ve got more than 90,000 people at CGI,” he says. “It takes a lot of people to make the kind of impact that our work does each day for clients around the world. That’s what I look back on.”
This meaningful work is continuing. CGI’s Build and Buy strategy remains a priority, to grow the company, its impact on clients and the opportunities it provides for its people.
“We want to do that both organically by winning and gaining new business, but we also want to do that through mergers and acquisitions,” Schindler says.
Over the last eight years of his tenure as CEO alone, Schindler says the company has bought several companies around the world. “What I learned from that is it starts and ends with the culture,” he says. “And when you get that right, it’s kind of magic.”
CGI’s culture is putting the client first, not the business, and the rest follows.
The Art of Mentoring & Giving Back
Leaders rarely make it on their own in GovCon. Schindler had many impactful mentors throughout his career — from his very first manager who reviewed every piece of code he wrote with rigor, up to his current role on the board.
“Everybody needs mentors, and for me, I was fortunate to have many,” he says.
He learned a lot from Donna Morea, the first head of CGI U.S. operations. He reported to her for many years, notably when he was running CGI Federal. “I learned from her the focus on [emotional intelligence], not just IQ,” he says. “She helped me be a more well-rounded leader.”
Paul Lombardi, who was the first CGI Federal chair, schooled Schindler on the importance of strategic patience. “It’s easy to be impatient when you’re trying to get things done, it’s easy to talk about strategy, but sometimes you put the two together and magic happens,” Schindler says. “He really taught me that.”
Serge Godin, who founded CGI in 1976, is also an important mentor to Schindler. He worked closely with Godin over the last decade and learned from him the importance of balancing the interests of stakeholders. “[Godin] was doing this long before stakeholder management became in vogue,” Schindler said. “It’s really ingrained in CGI, and it comes from him — the importance of evolution, not revolution, which is another take on the strategic patience.”
Shared leadership is an important concept at CGI, and Schindler tried to model this throughout the years. “It’s not any one individual,” he says. “We always have better ideas when we collaborate together.”
Schindler prioritizes giving back both personally and through CGI — a core value for the company, its founder Godin and Schindler himself. “It’s always been more about using our expertise to give back,” Schindler says. “There’s no organization, no government, no business, no nonprofit that can operate without the knowledge that we have.”
Schindler’s most influential mentors, however, are his family. He leans on his wife as a sounding board, and his four children help ground him. “You think you’re important and then you realize that there’s a whole other world out there and it has nothing to do with being the CEO,” he says. “I wouldn’t be the leader I am today without my strong family ties.”
Today, Schindler actively mentors and coaches, often learning as much as he gives in these interactions. This applies to his family as well. He is focused on sharing his knowledge, supporting others and staying involved locally. One of his daughters teaches in D.C. public schools, where he looks forward to volunteering. His eldest daughter, an entrepreneur, founded a food safety company, and he plans to help there when he can.
Full Circle Moments
Outside of work, Schindler is an avid gardener, golfer, traveler and reader. In the office, he stays focused on serving and prioritizes CGI’s board responsibilities. Reflecting on his career, he notes that education, innovation and growth weren’t his only guiding themes — landing in Montreal at CGI headquarters felt like a “full circle” moment.
Schindler moved to Montreal about 10 years ago, drawn to its similarities with Pittsburgh. Both cities, established at the turn of the century, have rivers running through them at the base of a mountain — Mount Washington in Pittsburgh and Mount Royal in Montreal. Like Pittsburgh, Montreal attracted English and French traders, with the St. Lawrence River turning it into a trade center.
Beyond geography, both cities share a strong religious background, a hard work ethic and an entrepreneurial spirit. Today, Pittsburgh is a tech hub, while Montreal has become a hotbed for artificial intelligence.
And while both cities have a strong affiliation with their sports teams, Schindler remains partial to his roots in Pittsburgh. This too has influenced him.
“To me, it was how you bring things together to accomplish something bigger than any individual, and that’s what I love about sports,” Schindler says.
In his very first address as CEO, Schindler noted the constant for CGI — as rings true for both his home cities — is change, but it’s the commitment to foundational values that drive progression and success.
“If you think about it, the pace of change in technology continues to accelerate which has an increasing impact as all of society becomes digitized,” he says. “It’s been quite easy to stay engaged, to stay true to that continuous learning, stay true to that innovation that I started with 40 years ago.”