Mike Man

Manager

TRADITIONAL BIO

Mike is a global citizen; he was born in Hong Kong, raised in Australia, and spent his adulthood in the United States. He has over 10 years of experience in business operations, technology implementation, and acquisitions, in both the private and nonprofit sectors, in diverse roles focused on leveraging technology for transformative change. He has provided advice and support to executives and managers in turnarounds, pivots, acquisitions, and post-merger integrations — cutting through the noise to establish a clear path forward during times of uncertainty.

Mike has a Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Operations Management and a Master of Science in Business Analytics from Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.

In his spare time, he enjoys both cooking and eating food, hiking, traveling, and spending time with his wife and daughter.

Analytical, Strategic, Focus, Ideation, Consistency

Introversion, Intuition, Thinking, Judging (INTJ)

THOUGHTFUL BIO

I have always been fascinated with how things work, as well as technology’s ability to enable us to improve on them.

This fascination has manifested itself in different ways throughout the years. When I was in elementary school, it was learning about structural integrity and different types of brick bonds so that I could build a more resilient playhouse in our backyard. In middle school, it was learning about aerodynamics and materials so that I could make a better boomerang — which I made during my free time in shop class, if you can believe it. In high school, it was learning how the hardware and software worked in the ubiquitous Nokia cellphone so that I could make and load my own MIDI ringtones of songs not available in the ringtone store. So, it is probably unsurprising that I have spent my adulthood learning about topics like the pasteurization curve (so that I could make cookie dough that was safe to eat raw) and SQL programming (so that I could develop a database for managing decades worth of company operational data that was just sitting in spreadsheets).

This same fascination and curiosity extend into my professional life. A wide and rewarding set of clients and opportunities has created a large repository of experiences, enabling me to draw on a diverse pool of analogous, and conceptually similar, scenarios to quickly connect the dots between business and technology, vision and strategy, and strategy and tactics.

Some of my favorite projects are:

Those where we take an idea, or a disparate collection of ideas, and create a bespoke vision, strategy, and plan to bring it to life — especially when the situation requires a new or novel approach for that client or industry

Those that require organizing and navigating a large volume of information to quickly assess a situation and then create a path to move forward — I particularly enjoy the opportunities to combine analysis and learning, such as when I am working with data in an unfamiliar field or in a new application

Mike’s Thoughts

A Technologist, Technician, and a Technology Specialist All Walk Into a Room, Who Do You Choose?

I’ve always found the question, “What do you do for a living?” challenging to answer. And as frustrating as that deadpan question is, I’ve had an equally difficult time answering the second most common question one gets in in their life, which is, “Where do you see...