Dr. Coffman received his Ph.D. in Economics in 1971 from the Krannert School of Industrial Administration at Purdue University. From 1971 through 1985, he held positions as Assistant and Associate Professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he taught statistics and operations research in the College of Business Administration.
In 1976 Coffman co-founded Management Decision Systems (MDS). As President and CEO of MDS from 1985 through 1992, he directed its credit scoring, consulting and software businesses. During this time, MDS developed the first credit bureau scores designed to predict bankruptcy and other credit losses. These scores, marketed by all three U.S. credit bureaus, began a new era in the use of credit bureau data to forecast consumer behavior; and were the precursor to the credit bureau scores available in the U.S. today.
In 1992 Coffman left MDS – at that time second in size only to Fair Isaac, its main competitor – to return to his consulting roots (MDS is now the North American SCOREX unit within Experian). In 1994 he co-founded Credit Strategy Management (CSM) to provide consulting and predictive modeling services for financial services organizations. By 1997 CSM had more than 25 clients in North America, including Bank of America, Household International, May Company Department Stores, Associates Financial Services, Green Tree Financial (later Conseco Finance), First Chicago, Citibank Retail Services, Montgomery Ward, J. C. Penney, and Bank of Montreal.
In 1997 CSM was acquired by, and became the Strategic Decision Services division of, May & Speh, a list processing and database management company in Chicago, Illinois. This merger brought together May & Speh’s processing and data capabilities with CSM’s consulting and credit management expertise. In 1998 May & Speh was acquired by Acxiom Corporation, the largest list processing and database management company in the United States. Strategic Decision Services continued as a business unit within Acxiom, providing consulting services to credit and insurance clients.Â
In 2000 Coffman resigned from Acxiom to once again pursue an independent consulting career. From 2000 to 2003 he provided consulting services to the International Finance Corporation (small business finance), Household International (internal scorecard development), Barclaycard (risk management and predictive modeling), Grupo Financiero Pacific (risk management and predictive modeling), Textron Financial (credit policy review and recommendations for their small business lending unit), and Conseco Finance (measuring and forecasting customer profitability).
In 2003, Coffman co-founded The Credit Policy Group (TCPG). TCPG’s primary focus has been assisting clients with the evaluation and improvement of their credit policy and credit management functions. Clients have included Fingerhut Corporation (credit policy and credit process review and recommendations), Fifth Third Bank (credit management strategies for the Indirect Auto and Bankcard businesses, including the integration of FICO credit bureau scores with internally developed customized credit scores), CompuCredit (creation and evaluation of alternative business strategies), and Banco Cuscatlan (assisted in changes to credit policy and credit management processes – including the development of multiple credit scoring solutions – for their bankcard and installment loan business in Central America).
