Vince Christakos is the President/CEO of VIP Leadership Services, LLC, the company he founded in January 2019 after forty-six years of experience in leadership roles in three different industries. He was an officer in the US Army for fifteen years where he served in a number of leadership positions, including as a battery commander with the 1st Infantry Division and a detachment commander with the US Army Artillery Group in Greece. During his time in the Army he was able to observe several great leaders up-close, one of these leaders was General Carl E. Vouno who became Chief of Staff of the US Army. These experiences inspired then Major Christakos to start his lifelong interest and study of leadership. After serving his county, Mr. Christakos entered private industry in 1989 as the Controller for the Los Angeles plant of the Container Corporation of America, a paper manufacturing company that produces cardboard boxes for many food products and the paper for the Los Angeles Times newspaper. He was quickly promoted to General Manager of the plant. During this time he was able to observe leaders in the private and public business sectors. He also received intense training in the Edward Deming’s Continuous Improvement and Statistical Process Control methodology. He became a trained facilitator for the company and assisted other general managers in implementing the Total Quality Management systems.  During the 1993 recession, Mr. Christakos decided to return public service and entered the K-12 education sector. He started at Moreno Valley USD and quickly learned the California K-12 public education industry and funding systems. There he was able to observe and work with great leaders, such as, Dr. Nick Ferguson and Dr. Christine Wallace. He also became involve with several professional organizations, the California Association of School Business Officials (CASBO) and the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA). He quickly rose to leadership positions in both organizations and became state president of CASBO and ACSA Region 12 President. 

Mr. Christakos served as Director of Fiscal Services at Hemet USD, Director of Centralized Support Services at Riverside County Office of Education, Assistant Superintendent Business Services at Redlands Unified School District, and back to Hemet USD as Assistant Superintendent Business services. 

Mr. Christakos was also an adjunct instructor at the University of California, Riverside where he taught the Leadership and Strategic Planning courses for the Chief Business Officer’s certification program. He also taught school finance classes in the ACSA Business Services Academy for ten years. He became the ACSA Business Academy Director after he retired in 2018. Mr. Christakos has been recognized as a statewide leader in California school business. He received ACSA’s Business Services Administrator of the Year three times, from ACSA Region 12, ACSA Region 19, and as the Statewide ACSA recipient. He received the Sky Joyner Award from CASBO, their highest recognition award, and the highest award from the International Association of School Business Official (ASBO International) the Distinguish Eagle Award. 

Mr. Christakos received a Bachelor of Science in Accounting & Economics from the University of Tampa and a Master of Science in Systems Management form the University of Southern California.