Mike is a Managing Director who joined Capital Insight, LLC in February 2026 as a restaurant finance specialist with over 35 years of commercial banking, investment banking and commercial real estate experience that includes syndicated middle market debt, credit management/underwriting, and sale leaseback portfolio acquisitions.   As a restructuring and distressed situations expert, he has navigated restaurant Chapter 11 bankruptcies & 363 auctions as a buyer, held Unsecured Creditor Committee seats and completed large workouts as a lender and/or REIT landlord.  His years of experience includes time with BMO, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, GE Capital Franchise Finance and CNL/Trustreet Properties, one of the largest restaurant REITs and issuer of securitized restaurant debt.  As Director of Acquisitions, he worked for Tavistock Group, a billionaire's family office where he focused on creative investments in restaurants, hospitality, luxury residential real estate, golf courses and loan portfolio acquisitions handling all aspects of origination & investment thesis development, due diligence and closings.

He is respected as a restaurant expert with quotes & articles in the Wall Street Journal, Restaurant Business Online, Restaurant Finance Monitor, and Franchise Times with regular appearances as panelist or host at industry conferences and webinars.

As a food banker, he was formerly the Chairman of the Board of the tenth largest food bank in the US who headed a 100,000 Sq. Ft. new food bank project, negotiated a complicated land assemblage for the new site in Orlando, and initiated a capital campaign for $15,000,000 that used creative New Market Tax Credits to help finance the project.

He is a passionate, but "recovering" former restaurant owner/operator/creator, cook, server, and humble dishwasher who worked his way through college earning a B.A. degree in Economics with a Finance concentration from Rutgers in NJ.  Mike is based in Austin, TX with his wife Victoria and their two Longhorn sons, Liam and Finn; Hook em!

“If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it’s the restaurant business.” - Anthony Bourdain