Michael has been a pioneer and business leader for over 30 years and, in that time has not only crossed the divide of so many business verticals but also challenges and leadership styles. With a unique skillset for being able to take a blue-sky view of a business, help define its purpose and exit, mapping back to today and crafting an overarching strategy to deliver key stakeholder goals. Never afraid to ask the questions of a business that garner the answers a board must hear, rather than want to hear, leaves Michael incredibly well placed to enter a turnaround project and exact swift and incredibly profitable change. A key strategic thinker and incredibly successful entrepreneur, the gravitas of experience Michael brings to a business simply cannot be underestimated. Leveraging an open and straight-talking approach and, a core of experience unrivalled in the modern business world, Michael never shies away from a challenge. The opposite, he thrives on it. Having now built, sold and turned around a whole raft of businesses around the globe, Michael is now looking to add a Non-Executive position to his, already impressive portfolio, where a business can truly benefit from him energising a large project, turning around a failing one, or simply leveraging such a clarity of mind in a growing business.

Mike Austin held my hand at the birth of Hardshell Labs, the innovative company he and I established together. As a hatchling businessman I needed a steady influence in the early days of the endeavor and Mike, as co-founder, provided that, as well as insight on the timing of crucial moves, wise counsel on presenting the idealistic core of the work we were doing and hard-nosed advice on how to keep the enterprise going in its most fragile state. His acumen was essential in taking my passion and channeling it constructively and creatively. For that I will be forever grateful. It is made all the sweeter by the fact that he and I go back to our high school days in Biology Class and that we have shared many thousands of laughs since then.

Michael Austin is one of the smartest, unique, and positive senior level executives I have had the honor to work with. He brings a wealth of experience across many areas of business, including but not limited to, investments, new product development, management, communications, and startups. Michael is a creative thinker, an intuitive and visionary, which is a perfect blend for a company who wants to be a trailblazer. While any company would be lucky to have Michael work with them based on his experience, he would be a gift to a company that believes in conscious capitalism, because of his belief system.

Mike Austin was invaluable to Great American Ink (vintage animation art and animation art publishing) and was considered a marketing and computer wizard. He developed the gallery’s first newsletter, implemented successful new marketing approaches over the Internet and innovated old ones, produced our first biannual, full-color lithographed catalog and started our Collector’s Club. His first efforts brought hundreds of new collectors resulting in a 30% increase in gallery business. Mike (brought) a company with an old-school business model into the 21st century, fundamentally changing the way we did business... Mike replaced cumbersome paper faxing and shelves of three-ring binders of art inventory photos with customized desktop computers on a new LAN, digitized our entire (multi-) million dollar inventory (including thousands of one-of-a-kind works of art) and made our business transparent, flexible and responsive for our employees and collectors. He was also able to protect our invaluable collector list through appropriate computer security measures, which easily withstood a court challenge when a competing vendor tried to claim (our gallery's) client list. He streamlined our collector database for easy access, tracked our client’s needs and interests for art consultants, managers and accountants.”

Michael Austin is truly the ultimate catalyst. He intuitively brings together the right people at the right time. Rather than dictate, he listens intently, and by doing so draws out from the individual or group the pure essence of what's in question. He's not shy. He'll dig deep until he strikes that Eureka moment. Plain and simple: He brings out the best.

Underneath Michael Austin's uncanny ability to be in 'the right places at the right times' lies his extraordinary capacity as a networking 'Guru' to connect essential People-to-People, to projects, and to our planet. With Aikido-deftness, he weaves ethical visions with the missions and project plans to manifest the desired positive outcomes in our ever-changing world. Witnessing his multi-talents, he has demonstrated his capacity to forge solutions from his intuitive wisdom as a talk show host of Casual Saints impacting millions of people planet-wide, to the co-founder realizing the Visionary success of Hardshell Labs reversing the extinction of the California Desert tortoise, and as the co-founder of Thoughtify, a promising startup intended to provide a worldwide events forecasting platform, to name a few. Michael, with a spicy blend of passion and compassion and as a lifelong meditator, carries an exquisite, dynamic balance between powerful intuition and logic. He has and continues to inspire new ways to lead through his innovative marketing, management, fund-raising, and personal-to-international communication skills. His unique style is invaluable!

Mike is professional, compassionate and extremely good at what he does. Whether you work with him in a group setting or on an individual basis, you will not forget the transformation you achieve through his guidance. Mike understands how to bring valuable tips to the equation that will help you 'get out of your own way' and onto achieving success.