About Mike
I am an independent consultant focused on operationalizing systems approaches. I work with leaders to shape how they drive change within their own teams and organizations.
My Journey
I started in 2010 with Engineers Without Borders Canada, joining a specialist team focused on building organizational capacity for market systems approaches. My first assignment was embedded consulting with a USAID-funded project in Ghana, working with senior management, middle management, and field staff on learning culture, team restructuring, and new ways of tracking progress.
Within a year, I was leading EWB's practice in this space: hiring, training, and coaching consultants, and identifying partnerships where our expertise could add real value. That early phase, 2010 to 2013, was deep immersion in market systems development (MSD) and a crash course in what it takes to make systemic approaches work inside organizations.
From 2013 to 2018, I stepped back from MSD to invest in leadership. At the University of Toronto, I designed and facilitated leadership programs, developed coaching models, and sharpened my skills in small group facilitation. I also built corporate research partnerships and became curious about social science methodology, which led me to the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education for an MA and later a PhD.
Since 2018, I have been a full-time independent consultant. My work with the BEAM Exchange, which began in 2017, has been a constant thread. Alongside that, I have built long-term consulting relationships with organizations like WUSC, ACDI/VOCA, and Swisscontact.
Finishing my PhD in 2023 sharpened my interest in connecting the different worlds I move between: leadership, skills and labor markets, and systems approaches. Some projects hit the sweet spot of all three. Others focus on one. I find value in both.
Areas of Expertise
Market Systems Development
MSD is a well-codified approach to systemic change in international development, with a rich ecosystem of tools, guidance, and evidence built up over two decades. My particular focus is on operationalization: how do you actually put MSD into practice?
- With project teams, building the skills and knowledge needed to do this work well
- With team leaders, focusing on management approaches, adaptive systems, and learning processes
- At the donor level, working on program design and procurement that enables (rather than constrains) systemic practice
Education, Skills, and Labor Markets
Much of my work applies MSD to employment and skills development. This includes leading the MSD4E Community of Practice, the MSD4E Landscape Study, and partnering with IDRC and the Royal Academy of Engineering to expand systemic approaches to developing the engineering profession in Africa. This domain also connects to my academic research on higher education and labor market transitions.
Climate and Environmental Sustainability
Rooted in my energy systems engineering background, my climate work has grown through a long-term partnership with Swisscontact. This includes portfolio stocktaking, case study development, learning clinics on climate integration, and designing the Climate Catalysts initiative.
Partnerships and Network
Key long-term partnerships include:
- •BEAM Exchange / DCED Secretariat — I'm a long-term, part-time member of the BEAM/DCED team supporting special projects, the MSD Working Group and DCED Global Seminar.
- •Ambit Strategy (Justin van Rhyn) — We have teamed up for several key assignments including the MSP Learning Review and the MSD4E Landscape Study.
- •The Canopy Lab — We have worked together on MSD leadership for many years, and jointly published the MSD Team Leader Competency Framework, as the backbone for leadership coaching.
- •Swisscontact/Springfield Centre — I have worked as an internal consultant to Swisscontact across economic development, skills and labor markets, and climate change since 2020.
- •WUSC — I have collaborated on long-term strategic support to the global team as well as specific projects since 2020.
Academic Background
My Focus
Practice
How I Work
Curious and critical
I am drawn to work that pushes boundaries, for me and for the organizations I work with. I ask all the questions, even the unmentionables, to get to the bottom of what drives organizational culture and decision-making.
Participatory and pragmatic
I seek to engage with as many different people in an organization as possible, while staying attentive to who holds decision-making power and who is genuinely motivated to drive change. Broad input matters, but so does knowing where the leverage is.
Outsider and insider
I thrive on long-term engagements where I get to know the organization and its people, and where we can test and experiment to see what works.