Working across sectors, Mike has helped visionary leaders devise and implement ambitious programs ranging from the global to the hyper local: launching a multi-year, $11M, transnational public health challenge combatting infectious diseases; building a winning coalition of policymakers and advocates to establish a federal consumer protection agency; or, developing first-in-nation legislation for a major US city formalizing community engagement in the capital planning process.

Mike’s mission has always focused on building trust – helping people on both sides of big issues better understand one another. Mike has lived life on both sides of a big issue himself – he came out in the middle of the US marriage equality battle. It took Mike thirty years to find his voice and to use it. 

Through this formative experience, and leveraging his professional training, Mike in 2018 founded Public Sentiment - a strategic engagement nonprofit leveraging grassroots organizing, social sciences, and conflict resolution to help governments, businesses, and communities co-design data-based solutions. Working with various city agencies and cultural institutions across the nation, Mike leads a multidisciplinary team of researchers, service designers, and community leaders designing programs addressing issues like economic development, mental health and wellbeing, environmental justice, and creative placemaking.

Prior to founding Public Sentiment, Mike worked in Berlin and Istanbul for the European Stability Initiative, preparing policy white papers on EU visa liberalization, and as a live event program producer, curating compelling stories of impact for organizations like Gates Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative, Aspen Institute, and Skoll Foundation. He first earned his chops grassroots organizing as a National Staffer on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Presidential Campaign, working in various capacities across the country, and building the campaign’s highest-producing phone bank nation-wide.

Outside of his 9-5, Mike is an avid reader, buy-local advocate, and nationally-ranked competitive swimmer. He has been a founding member of Out in Tech’s Youth Mentorship Program to increase the pipeline of LGBTQ+ professionals in tech, Co-Chair of Swim Across America’s Young Associates Board, and is currently committee member of the Columbia SIPA Alumni Board.

Mike’s work has been funded in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, BMW Foundation, and Robin Hood Foundation, selected as a finalist for MIT Solve, The Tamer Fund at Columbia University, and the National Science Foundation’s Civic Innovation Challenge, and has been featured in outlets like VICE, Nature, and the World Economic Forum’s Agenda. Mike holds a Bachelor’s in Public Policy and Law from Trinity College, where he was four-time Class President and three-time Varsity swim captain, and a Master’s in International Affairs, specializing in international conflict resolution, from Columbia University.