Christopher Millington - Student Engagement Award

2019 NIU College of Business Alumni Luncheon

Christopher Millington’s true passion has always been for people and organizational development. Organizational transformations have been his focus for many years. “Leading from Every Seat” is his mantra. Without empowered people, very little success can be anticipated from technology organizations. Millington has extensive experience with a broad and varied suite of coaching and development tools.

Millington served McDonald’s Corporation as global CTO for twelve years. His global responsibilities included infrastructure operations, strategy, architecture, outsourcing relationships, supplier and vendor management, I/T procurement and CORE business application solutions.

Millington retired from McDonald’s in 2010 and formed Top-Down Leadership Consulting LLC. The focus of the firm is executive coaching, leadership development, I/T organizational transformations and outsourcing organizational transitions.

Millington’s 40 years of experiences included senior I/T leadership roles in financial services, computer services, manufacturing, distribution and telecommunications industries with companies including American Express and Avnet Computer. He also served in the United States Marine Corps Reserves.

In 2007, Millington established the Marian Elizabeth Millington Scholarship for the Advancement of Women in Technology, which is housed in the OM&IS department. He was an Experiential Learning Center (ELC) Advisory Board Member in 2006, was a member of the OM&IS Executive Advisory Committee (EAC) in 2008, was an ELC coach/adjunct faculty in 2011 and was the chairman of the OM&IS EAC in 2018.

Millington is married to Lorraine and has retired to Arizona fulltime since 2016. He has three adult children and four grandchildren.