Sr. Director, Social VenturesMercy Corps
Michael brings 20 years of experience applying entrepreneurial approaches to addressing global social challenges. Michael serves as Senior Director of the Social Ventures team at the global humanitarian agency, Mercy Corps. Michael leverages his experience launching early stage enterprises to help Mercy Corps identify, invest in, and accelerate impact-oriented, for-profit businesses. Prior to Mercy Corps, Michael was Co-Founder of Simpa Networks, a venture-backed energy services company with a bold mission: to make modern energy simple, affordable, and accessible for everyone. Michael has led Arc Finance’s research into micropayment approaches for financing pro-poor clean energy and water enterprises and consulted to the social venture capital fund, Acumen Fund, mapping private sector investments in nutrition in east Africa. Michael was on the founding team of the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company, the Institute for OneWorld Health, whose goal is clinical development and distribution of affordable new medicines for diseases of poverty in the developing world. Michael spent his early career with the Social Development Department of the World Bank. Michael holds degrees from Duke University (CASE Scholar) and Vanderbilt University (Ingram Scholar) and has studied at the Universidad de la Habana in Cuba.