Chris Laping brings 25 years of information technology and business transformation experience to his newly launched effort, People Before Things, which includes a recently released, best-selling book focused on change leadership. Chris enjoyed 14 years as a Chief Information Officer across three different brands and the work of the teams he led has been spotlighted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fast Company, and CIO Magazine among others. His book, People Before Things: Change Isn’t an End-User Problem explores the connection of the human experience to the outcomes of change and transformation initiatives and the role leaders play to pave success.
Prior to founding People Before Things, LLC, Chris served as SVP, Business Transformation and Chief Information Officer at Red Robin Gourmet Burgers. In these roles, he was a highly contributing member of a management team that completed a successful turnaround, taking the company from an $8 stock to $89.
Chris has received several awards for his work including The Economist’s Top 5 Social Business Leader and InformationWeek’s Social Business Technology Leader. He has also been named as a ComputerWorld Premier 100 IT Leader and has received three InfoWorld 100 awards. The work of his teams has been spotlighted in three books: The Engaged Leader, Mobile Mind Shift, and Implementing World Class IT.
Chris is originally from Jacksonville, FL. He received a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems at Florida State University and his Master of Business Administration at the University of Florida.