Current Term Expires
January 4, 2021

Residence
Charlestown 

A life-long Bostonian, Michael has spent more than 25 years as a leader in Boston’s leading financial service firms including SBLI, U.S. Trust and Citizens Financial Group.

In 2014, Michael joined Agency 451, an 85+ person agency headquartered in Boston (with NY and LA offices as well), to run its Financial Services practice. Michael and his team provide award-winning Creative, PR and Digital marketing services for banks, insurance companies and other financial service providers. Michael also oversees the Account Management process for Agency 451.

Michael began his career in finance at U.S. Trust where he served as a Commercial Lender, Team Leader and Regional President. In his last role, Michael drove the acquisition by U.S. Trust of Brewer & Lord, one of the region’s oldest and largest independent insurance agencies.

In 2000, upon the completion of Citizens Bank’s acquisition of U.S. Trust, Michael became President of Citizens Financial Group’s Insurance Services, overseeing efforts to grow the acquired property & casualty insurance agency through acquisition, cross-sell and organic growth. Michael also oversaw all commercial sales management for the New England region of Citizens, spearheading the Bank’s commercial cross-sell, incentive and marketing efforts.

Upon the successful divestiture of Citizens’ Insurance Services division, Michael then joined U.S. Trust Bank of America Private Wealth Management as a Private Client Advisor, where as a Registered Investment Advisor he oversaw a team of wealth professionals serving the financial and investment needs of high net worth individuals.

While at both Citizens and Bank of America, Michael served on the Board of Directors of SBLI of MA, representing their shareholder interest in the life insurance company. In 2010, he joined the company full-time as SVP of Marketing & Distribution, with direct responsibility for all marketing and revenue generation. While leading the sales and marketing efforts at SBLI of MA, they expanded their sales footprint from 15 to 49 states, revamped their distribution networks and dramatically changed their digital marketing efforts, with direct bottom-line improvement.

Extremely involved in Boston’s non-profit community, Michael is Chair of the Boston School Committee where he has served since 2008, when he was first appointed by then Mayor Menino. Michael is currently in his 5^th term as Chair, having been unanimously elected Chair by his fellow members each of the past five years. The Boston School Committee oversees the Boston Public Schools for 57,000 students. In his role has Chair, Michael has driven the Strategic Planning process for the School Committee, the Superintendent Search process that resulted in the hiring of Superintendent Chang and the development of the Opportunity & Achievement Gap Task Force,. Including the School Committee’s approval of key new policies designed to eliminate Opportunity & Achievement Gaps. Michael also serves on the Executive Committee of the Council of Great City Schools, which is the main governing body of the group of the nation’s top 70 urban school districts. Additionally, Michael also serves as Chair of the Private Industry Council’s Youth Council, overseeing all federal Workforce Investment Act funding for youth efforts.

Michael served five years as chair of the Boston School Committee, from 2013-2018. He also served one year as vice chair in 2012.

Michael is a graduate of Boston Latin School, Boston College, Babson College, the Stonier Graduate School of Banking, and Royal Bank of Scotland/Harvard Business School Executive Leadership Programme.