Leadership & Timeline

The founders of ITSM Academy, Lisa Schwartz and Jayne Groll, “grew up” in the world of Help Desks. As our careers progressed, we graduated to Senior Management roles within our organizations. While our titles and responsibilities differed, our mutual passion for quality IT Services kept us on parallel paths.  

As the first wave of IT Service Management (ITSM) and ITIL^® reached the shores of the United States, we were both hooked. An internationally accepted collection of best practices focused on reducing IT costs and improving customer satisfaction was here.  We had to get our arms around this!  So, like many of you, our research began. It became obvious to us that education and networking would be our first steps. Local resources were limited – so we gathered some colleagues to help start the South Florida itSMF USA Local Interest Group (LIG). We also began the hunt for quality ITIL training. At the time, options were very limited. As they say, one thing led to another...

To help fill the void, in 2003, we founded ITSM Academy and set our sights on developing "Americanized" training content and achieving Accreditation. From the start, we were committed to building content of the highest possible quality.

By 2005, we had developed in-house, all available ITIL Training, including Service Manager.

In 2006, we were recognized by the Project Management Institute (PMI) as a Global Registered Education Provider (R.E.P.), allowing our alumni to earn PDUs.

In 2007, the "new" ITIL Qualification Scheme was introduced and we became the first US organization to achieve Accreditation.  Again, we developed all of the courseware in-house, expanding the Courseware Licensing opportunities for our partners and clients. 

2012 - 2013 we rolled out our game based learning (GBL) GAME ON! An Interactive Learning Experience^® and our Learner Portal - my.itsmacademy.com

In 2014, ITSM Academy expanded the educational framework to include Agile Service Management^® and DevOps Foundation.   

In 2015, along with Alan Shimel, Lisa and Jayne co-founded the DevOps Institute (DOI) while introducing ITSM Academy's DevOps Campus, becoming the first global elite partner of DOI. In 2016, Jayne retired from ITSM Academy, to focus on leading and building DevOps Institute, with Alan and Lisa serving on the Board of Directors. 

In 2017, Lisa and the team created, developed and on-boarded more classes into the Academy's DevOps Campus. ITSM Academy is proud to serve as Lead Author on a large number of the DevOps Institute portfolio titles.

In 2018, along with Alan Nance, Lisa then co-founded XLACollab. Part of the mission of the Collab is to develop innovative Employee Experience courses, including Experience Level Agreement (XLA) training.  

2018/2019, we participated in ITIL 4 development and beta, delivering one of the first ITIL 4 foundation classes globally. As AXELOS released the rest of the ITIL 4 certification scheme, ITSM Academy remained on the forefront of ITIL training.

In 2019, we revamped our Public Classroom Learning Credits program, making it even simpler to maximize not just training dollars, but the type of education your learners receive.

In 2020, we hunkered down, and released 11 new courses - including completing the ITIL 4 scheme and additional Employee Experience (XLA) accredited classes. We also took this time to work internally on multiple continuous improvement programs, focused on learner experiences.

Between 2022 and 2023, we released 6 more new certification classes. 

January of 2024 we celebrated our 20th anniversary!!

By now, you’ve likely researched more than one training provider. What makes ITSM Academy different? Why should you choose us?

“Our business values are founded in trust, loyalty, professionalism and long term relationships. We provide personalized solutions based on those same values and built on the foundation on our own experiences – as IT Professionals.” 

Sounds nice, but can we back that statement up?

We don’t need to. Our 100,000+ (and growing!) alumni do it for us. They are happy to talk about the quality and personalized services they receive from ITSM Academy. Please visit our testimonials page, or contact us for additional information.

Thanks for visiting ITSM Academy – we look forward to welcoming you into our learning community.

Sincerely,

	Lisa Schwartz, Co-Founder and CEO ITSM Academy. Co-Founder DevOps Institute & XLACollab. LinkedIn
	There is no traffic jam on the extra mile ~ Roger Staubach
	ITSM Academy, Inc. is Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) certified, woman owned and operated. The Story of Franny The Flamingo