Before founding 17 Triggers, Mike was a creative adman working for clients ranging from Nike to Coca-Cola to United Colors of Benetton. He has worked with big ad agencies in USA, England, Italy, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia where he earned the name ‘adman with a bleeding heart’. After the guilt of selling beers and cigarettes to people making less than a dollar a day caught up with him, he quit to start consulting for the development sector until opening 17 Triggers in 2010.
Once called ‘the Rocky Balboa of Social Innovation Labs,’ 17 Triggers teaches organizations how to innovate like tech startups – using lean, design thinking, HCD, rapid prototyping, and quick and dirty RCTs. With work spanning across 16 countries, their clients include UNICEF Global, iDE, DAI, ADB, WSUP, Plan International, Stone Family Foundation, and MTV EXIT. Mike is also a 2013 Unreasonable Fellow, TEDx-er, and speaks on social innovation around the world, most recently at the 2015 Skoll World Forum.