Mike is the Director of ASPI’s Defence Strategy Program.

Mike spent 27 years in the national security community, primarily in the National Intelligence Community (NIC), where he was recognised in 2022 with an Australian Intelligence Medal (AIM) for his collaborative style, foresight and initiative in a series of analytical, liaison and senior executive roles that enabled the NIC to identify and respond effectively to emerging regional and global security threats.

Prior to joining ASPI, Mike led Protegas Australia’s multi-source fusion capability and supported clients’ intelligence planning, collection, analysis and production needs.

Before this, Mike drove integration of the policy and intelligence communities in senior executive roles in the Defence Intelligence Organisation and the Office of National Assessments (later Office of National Intelligence). Mike retired from the Australian Public Service in 2023 as ONI’s Indo Pacific Intelligence Mission Manager, where he drove the optimisation of NIC resources in support of Australia’s Indo-Pacific policies.

Mike has covered Defence and national security issues across the South Pacific, South East and North East Asia, and built close cooperation with partners across the region through his leadership of intelligence diplomacy initiatives. He has served as a diplomat in Washington DC, where he promoted Australia’s defence, intelligence and national security interests while building an extensive network in the US defence, intelligence and policy community.

Mike came to Canberra in 1998 to join the Defence Graduate Program. Prior to this he worked as a policy officer in the Western Australian State government and served in the Australian Army Reserve in the Infantry and Intelligence Corps.

Mike spent his early childhood in New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore before settling down in Perth, Western Australia. He graduated from the University of Western Australia in 1995 with a first-class honours degree in Political Science, having written a thesis on the political, economic and social complications of China’s economic miracle.