About Mike

Mike is a serial ecosystem architect, strategic advisor, and fractional executive who specializes in taking complex technologies and business models and making them mainstream to create powerful business flywheels for sustained success. Over 35 years, Mike has architected the foundational models for partner-led growth that have enabled tens of thousands of companies worldwide to scale their products, services, and solutions.

Mike's expertise spans platform marketing, innovation ecosystems, developer communities, and strategic alliances. He has a proven track record of transforming emerging technologies into accessible, scalable business opportunities and has advised hundreds of companies on ecosystem development. Mike designed and built many of the partnership frameworks and go-to-market strategies that define how modern technology companies scale through ecosystems by simplifying complexity into mainstream adoption.

At Red Hat (acquired by IBM for $34 billion), Mike created Red Hat Partner Connect - the world's largest commercial partner ecosystem. He developed the Red Hat Certified logo program for applications, hardware and cloud solutions, building customer confidence that these products work together seamlessly. Mike architected the comprehensive tech enablement, certification and publishing processes that populated the Red Hat catalog and ultimately built out the Red Hat Marketplace for cloud solutions. He was responsible for partner marketing, deep alliance work, and extensive outbound marketing including the Red Hat X podcast series and hundreds of partner-led webinars that educated customers and drove mainstream adoption of complex open-source technologies.

Before Red Hat, Mike dedicated nearly two decades to Microsoft Corporation, where he built the first global partner program, founded the Microsoft Developer Network (making developer tools and platforms accessible to millions), and established the Microsoft Technology Centers to democratize enterprise innovation. Working directly with Bill Gates, Mike helped design the blueprint for turning complex platform technologies into mainstream business success that the industry continues to follow.

Mike specializes in taking emerging technologies including AI/ML, edge computing, cloud platforms, containers, and open-source solutions and creating the business model frameworks that make them accessible and profitable for companies of all sizes. He serves as a strategic advisor to venture capital firms and their portfolio companies, helping them transform complex innovations into mainstream market opportunities through partnership-driven growth.

You can learn more about Mike at MikeWerner.biz or connect with him on LinkedIn.

• Mike is currently supporting founders and new life science entrepreneurs with advisory and mentorship with C10 Labs of Cambridge

• Mike also is working with the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship at MIT with incredible students and projects from the MIT ecosystem

• Mike helped a venture-backed AI startup design their strategic partner program from scratch, landing them a major licensing deal that turned their technology into a revenue engine for enterprise partners

• Mike partnered with a Fortune 50 company to design their early adopter strategy and recruit 20 strategic partners for a major 2025 product launch, creating the ecosystem foundation for market success

• Mike advised a global supply chain leader on building a partner-led ecosystem strategy for their new distributed technology platform, creating frameworks that scale across multiple continents and vertical industries

• Mike is currently helping multiple European startups crack the US market by developing growth strategies that align platforms, channels, partners, and customers for successful international expansion and revenue growth