Cameron Executive Network Mentor

Mike Morris

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My professional life has been varied as I have reinvented myself frequently over a 40+ year career. For the first 25 years of my career, I worked for a large public accounting and consulting firm, worked in the back office of a couple of major investment bank and brokerage firms and then transitioned into the consumer products and retail space, serving in a number of capacities, ultimately working my way up to Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Operating Officer (COO) roles for multiple start-up and family-owned and operated product companies that eventually grew into nationally recognized brands. Building upon that background, and leveraging a professional network that I have developed over the last twenty years, I have worked in an advisory capacity with a handful of private equity firms and have owned and operated my own boutique retail consulting firm providing supply chain optimization, warehousing, logistics, manufacturing, and IT services for SMB (small to mid-sized) companies. Over the course of my career, I have gotten the most satisfaction working with start-up and family-owned companies. I have found that these smaller, fast-moving, environments provided me with the opportunity to wear multiple hats regardless of my official job title. We were frequently short on human and financial capital, but never short on needs, responsibilities, challenges, and things to be accomplished. I enjoyed being one of the few in a small business where everything I did mattered more than one of the many in a larger firm. I guess that is just the way I am wired. Along the way, I earned an MBA from New York University in Finance and International Business and a BA from the University of Bridgeport, CT in Political Science and International Business. In addition to serving as a CEN Mentor, I also mentor start up and early-stage businesses at UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE). Outside of UNCW, I serve as a reading tutor in a 2nd grade class in Boliva (Brunswick County), serve as a softball umpire in a local spring and fall softball league, am learning to play the piano, make large, complicated LEGOs, and tutor teens and adults in various subjects, as well as ride my bike, work out with a professional trainer, and play golf (poorly!)

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