Christopher Michel

Christopher Michel in San Francisco

Christopher P. Michel (born August 26, 1967) is an American investor, entrepreneur and photographer. He is the founder of Affinity Labs and Military.com and runs Nautilus Ventures,^[1] a seed venture fund.

Early life and career

A selfie taken by Christopher Michel in a Lockheed U-2 at 70,000 feet

Education

Michel earned his commission from the NROTC program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was selected as the distinguished naval graduate.^[2] He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1998.^[3] He was given an honorary doctorate by Tiffin University.

Military

Prior to his business career, Michel served as a Naval Flight Officer in the United States Navy. While on active duty, Michel flew as a Navigator, Tactical Coordinator and Mission Commander aboard the P-3C Orion aircraft. Following his operational tour, he worked in The Pentagon as Aide to the Chief of the Naval Reserve.

Career

Business

In 1999, he founded Military.com, an online portal for servicemembers, veterans and their families.^[4] In 2006, Michel founded Affinity Labs, which runs a portfolio of online professional communities. Both Military.com and Affinity Labs were purchased by Monster Worldwide.. In 2008, he founded Nautilus Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm.

Michel serves as a Director of Dale Carnegie and CatchLight.^[5] He previously served on the boards of 3D Robotics, Kixeye, Castlight Health (NYSE: CSLT),^[6] International Data Group (IDG), the United Service Organizations (USO), United States Naval Institute (USNI), Tugboat Yards, the USS Arizona Memorial Fund, the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation, Alliance Health & EZ Board. He was also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School during the 2010–2011 school year and served on the Presidents’ Circle of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,^[7] and was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.

Writing and photography

Michel was a longtime columnist in Proceedings magazine. He is also one of three protagonists in Bill Murphy's book, The Intelligent Entrepreneur: How Three Harvard Business School Graduates Learned the 10 Rules of Successful Entrepreneurship, published by Henry Holt in 2010.^[8]

Michel is also a photographer whose photographs have been used by National Geographic, the Smithsonian, the New York Times, the BBC, Outside Magazine, and others.