Bio

With more than 25 years of successful product and service innovation, Michael is passionate about finding creative solutions for Athru’s clients.  

Since co-founding Athru in 2012, Michael has enjoyed the Company’s tremendous variety of clients and assignments.  From Fortune 500 companies to a high-tech start-up; from a private high school to one of the world’s great arts organizations, it has been a remarkable journey. (See Work Highlights section for details)

Prior to Athru, Michael served as Associate Dean of Executive Education at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management for five years.  During that time, his team launched the Department’s signature offering, Leadership Deep Dive. Under his leadership, the Department set all time revenue and margin records.  

Before joining the Weatherhead School, he was Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Cuyahoga Community College, where he created the award-winning It’s What You Know advertising campaign featuring, among others, Cleveland’s Mayor Frank Jackson.  That campaign, together with an aggressive approach to public relations, led to application increases of 6%, 14% and 21% in successive semesters.

In the early 2000s, Michael held positions as Director of Communications at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management and Executive Director of Relationship Management at the Weatherhead School.  In both instances, he helped lead strategic planning efforts, and created advertising campaigns to support those efforts.

Prior to that, he served as Senior Director of Communications for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.  As the senior public relations official, he developed collaborative relationships with local, regional and national media, helping to raise the profile of the Museum, and reverse a five-year downward attendance trend.   

After obtaining his MBA from Weatherhead in 1993, Michael spent nearly eight years at Invacare Corporation in marketing and product development roles, launching many groundbreaking products and winning numerous advertising awards, as well as being listed on several U.S. patents.

Michael was born and raised in Portadown, Northern Ireland where he lived until he moved to Scotland to attend the University of Edinburgh.  After obtaining his B.A. from Edinburgh, and serving as president of the student government for a sabbatical year, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1986 to take a position with sports marketing giant IMG.  Other than his stint at Boston College, he has made Cleveland his home ever since, and is a relentless Cleveland booster.