Michael has a passion for starting things. Whether launching companies or building communities, he has spent much of the last 25 years breaking new ground. He is a design and innovation leader, with a passion for making both more rigorous and more accessible.

Michael is a founder. He has led startup ventures in online learning, co-working and mobile technology. He helped establish the Strategic Innovation Lab (slab.ocad.ca) a center for research and development in design, innovation and strategic foresight at the Ontario College or Art & Design. Michael also is a founding member of Overlap, a unique network of front-line innovation practitioners and he invented and co-developed (with Matthew Milan) Innovation Parkour, a scalable framework for training people in large organizations to become more innovative.

From 2016-2021 Michael held several leadership roles in an elite innovation unit in the US Department of Defense. He was one of the first employees of the National Security Innovation Network and helped build its brand, its programming and the human network that connects innovators in defense, academia and the venture communities.

Michael founded Moso (online learning platform) in 2010. He has also co-founded: SMLR in 2013 (geospatial mobile technology), Foundery (an innovation lab in Toronto, 2010), Torch Innovation (2010), Overlap (peer-to-peer innovation organization 2006), Torch Partnership (Strategic and Innovation Consulting 2006), and Aegis (1999)

A philosopher by training, Michael's Ph.D. research examined the social history of how ideas and norms of objectivity are shaped by communities of practice.

Specialties: Strategy, Design Thinking, Scenario Thinking, Problem Definition, Innovation, Positioning