Meet Mike
Mike Werner is the architect behind some of tech's most successful ecosystem strategies.
At every industry shift, he's built the frameworks that transformed how platforms connect with partners, developers, and customers.
At Microsoft, he created the first global partner program and founded MSDN, the world's largest developer community. At Red Hat, he scaled their ecosystem to over $1B in influenced revenue and onboarded 250+ startups generating $500M+ in opportunities.
Mike's expertise spans the full ecosystem spectrum - from technical platform integration to community building, from startup acceleration to enterprise partnership strategy. He's worked directly with Bill Gates, advised VCs at Flagship Ventures, and helped hundreds of companies turn their platforms into thriving growth engines.
Today, Mike works as a fractional executive, consultant and strategic advisor, helping platforms, tech companies, startups, and venture capital firms build ecosystems where technology, partners, and communities drive exponential growth together.
Based in Massachusetts, Mike brings three decades of hands-on ecosystem building experience to companies ready to scale beyond their product.
Global Platforms, Global Programs
Microsoft Partner Network
Mike founded Microsoft's Partner Network in the early 1990s, establishing the strategic framework that recruited and enabled tens of thousands of OEMs, ISVs, and System Integrators to build and sell Microsoft-based solutions to reach their full potential.
Microsoft Emerging Business & VC
Mike founded Microsoft's Emerging Business Team, the company's first startup program designed to identify, engage, and integrate innovative startups into the Microsoft platform ecosystem. This initiative successfully sourced and onboarded emerging companies, driving customer value through expanded solution offerings and accelerating Microsoft's innovation pipeline through strategic startup partnerships
Red Hat Global Partner Program
Mike founded Red Hat Partner Connect creating the world's largest commercial open source ecosystem that brings thousands of open source solutions to enterprise customers. This comprehensive partner program established Red Hat as the leading platform for enterprise open source adoption by enabling partners to develop, certify, and distribute solutions across Red Hat's technology stack.
Red Hat Startup Innovation
Mike founded Red Hat's startup program, establishing a strategic pathway for innovative open source solutions to extend the Red Hat platform while creating integration opportunities with IBM Ventures. This initiative bridged the gap between emerging open source technologies and enterprise adoption, accelerating startup growth while expanding Red Hat's ecosystem capabilities.
Mike's expertise in startup ecosystem development spans two of the world's most influential computing platforms - architecting Microsoft's foundational corporate venture capital strategy in the closed source world and building Red Hat's commercial innovation engine in the open source ecosystem. His dual perspective across both paradigms created the venture frameworks that accelerated thousands of startups and positioned Red Hat for seamless integration with IBM Ventures
Products, Platforms & Theme Expertise
Mike has worked on some of the industry's most successful products (Microsoft Windows, Visual Studio, Internet Explorer, Azure Cloud Platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, OpenStack and OpenShift) building adoption and GTM at the intersection of platforms, products and partnerships
Recent Partners
