MIKE CLARK
ABOUT
I find the connections others miss.
With over fourteen years of experience, my secret sauce is sitting at the intersection of performance, engagement, and innovation. I craft experiences that leave people better than I found them, and I’m the technical one who integrates the systems underneath, with just enough culture Kool-Aid mixed in to make them want to run to work each day.
What I believe.
Behavior change is the job.
Training is a means, not the point. I start with what people need to do differently, design back from there, and measure whether it actually happened.
Culture makes learning stick.
Skills fade when they only live in a course. I tie programs to culture and storytelling, so what people learn shows up in how the team actually works.
Built for the point of need.
People won’t google how to swim while they’re drowning. Bleak, maybe, but it applies to training. Learning isn’t a check-the-box activity, so I build it right-sized and worth people’s time, anchored on what needs to happen and when.
AI is leverage for people.
I use AI every day to stretch what I can do, and I bring my team along with human-first upskilling, so it builds their expertise instead of replacing it.
Most companies hire someone for learning, someone else for culture, a designer, an agency for media, and a consultant for AI.
I bring all of that under one roof.
An in-house learning and media agency that partners across functions, so every program lands as more than the sum of its parts.
Sound like the missing piece on your team? Let’s talk.
hi@mikeclark.designTHE WORK
Behavior change, built to scale.
Learning, culture, and media built in-house and owned end to end — strategy, design, production, systems, rollout, and measurement after launch — across biotech, fintech, and CPG.
My last four companies each recruited me to build their learning function and set its direction.
At Forward Financing and 2seventy bio, my approach to onboarding cut new-hire ramp time by more than 30%.
Saved in agency and vendor costs by bringing creative media in-house: video, motion graphics, art direction, employer brand, and learning content, produced to agency standard and measured against market rates. My favorite compliment? “What vendor built this?”
Nearly three hours of opt-in learning per employee in the first six months at a fast-paced biotech startup, where attention and optional training rarely mix.
PROGRAMS · MANAGER DEVELOPMENT
First, the managers.
At each of my last three companies, the first program I built was foundational manager training: one core skill set for managers at every level, from first-time leads to VPs.
I run it as a curious dialogue where everyone in the room brings their own experience, so the course gets richer than the slides.
“I’ve been through manager training for 25 years. This was the most hands-on and impactful I’ve taken. It felt like a course we were building together, and it opened my eyes to opportunities I’d been missing as a people leader.”
VP-level people manager, program feedback
HOW I BUILD
Right-sized. Measured.
Learning doesn’t always happen in the portal.
Programs and systems sized to the audience and the company. I’ve integrated many LMS platforms and reach people beyond them too, with everything xAPI-enabled.
Every learning experience, measured rigorously.
Trained on the ISO standard for learning and development metrics, ISO/TS 30437:2023, so programs get better with each iteration.
Connected, so it just works.
I consolidate people systems and keep their data true, so the experience stays seamless across performance, engagement, onboarding and offboarding surveys, HRIS, and the LMS. I build the integration and hand IT a solution they can simply run.
“Having a partner like Mike makes our jobs a lot easier. He brings the solutions to us, and all we have to do is execute.”
IT integration engineer
AI ENABLEMENT
As an early adopter, I knew AI would change everything. And it has.
I also know the swirl and noise its pace creates, so I meet it head on, showing my teams what AI can do to augment their work and what it still can’t do reliably.
Part process, part mindset, the training builds the habits to keep iterating with a technology that improves faster than any curriculum can be updated.
CASE STUDY · ONBOARDING GAME
From the bench, to the clinic, to the patient.
SimBio is a simulation game that tells a medicine’s story. Players take the founder’s seat and make the real decisions behind a biotech’s tumultuous journey, explained so even non-scientists can follow every step.
EXPERIENCE
Biotech, fintech, and CPG.
- Apogee TherapeuticsAcquired by AbbVie, Sep 2026Senior Manager, People, Learning & CultureApr 2025 – Present
- Forward FinancingSenior Manager, Learning & DevelopmentMay 2024 – Apr 2025
- AI Creative & Learning ConsultantIndependent consultancy for small teams adopting AISep 2023 – May 2024
- 2seventy bioSpun out from bluebird bioManager, Learning & InclusionNov 2021 – Sep 2023
- bluebird bioManager, Learning Experience Design · Senior L&D SpecialistMay 2019 – Nov 2021
- The Kellogg CompanyAssociate Manager, Instructional Development · Instructional DeveloperNov 2013 – Feb 2019
Insights Discovery PractitionerApple Certified Pro, Final Cut Pro X