One might say that Mike Wilkes started his teaching career in Wisconsin in 1978 when he was enlisted by his 5th grade teacher to mentor older students in reading. This early experience of being invested in the education and achievement of others stuck with him. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and graduated in 1990 with a Bachelor’s in the philosophy of education and then again in 1991 with his Master’s from Stanford University in the same subject and writing his dissertation on John Dewey.

Recruited in 2019 as an NYU Adjunct Professor, he is an information technology and security expert, public speaker, philanthropist, author, musician, occasional internet radio jazz DJ and former trustee on the board of directors for the National Jazz History Museum in Harlem. Mike also joined the faculty of Columbia University as a part time lecturer in January of 2025 teaching IT Risk Management in the School of Professional Studies.

Former Chief Information Security Officer for Major League Soccer, he was previously the CISO at SecurityScorecard and before that the CISO at ASCAP where he built the information security program for the $1.2 billion dollar 800,000 member-strong performing rights organization. Prior to that he was the head of security for Marvel leading the DevOps, Enterprise Architecture and Infosec teams and likes to joke that it was his job to keep Iron Man safe. These roles were preceded by working in the financial services sector as the head of infrastructure at AQR Capital, a $140 billion hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The 1990’s dotcom internet boom found him building and securing websites and e-commerce infrastructure for such well-known brands as Starbucks, Playstation, Macy’s, Nike, McDonalds, Blockbuster, Colgate, Harley-Davidson and nVidia. His technical skills and experience allowed him to thrive even during the bursting of the dotcom bubble, at which point in 2002 he moved to Europe.

While working in Amsterdam for 11 years, he was the lead on projects that included creating online/direct banking for Rabobank in Ireland, England, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium and the Netherlands. He also designed and built Rabobank’s €25M flagship trading floor in Utrecht which was used as the blueprint for trading floors in London, New York, Hong Kong and Sydney.

He has significant experience in the travel industry, having managed e-commerce, e-marketing and mission critical IT infrastructure for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, enabling them to move from 10% online sales to 90% online sales. He also launched a forward-looking €30M energy trading and risk management platform for Dutch energy company Nuon. Directly responsible for leading the construction of EMS (Energy Management System) infrastructure that controls power generation across 14 Nuon power plants (around the time that Stuxnet was discovered).

Returning to work in the US in 2013, he managed the CME’s Infrastructure & Operations division responsible for ensuring the stability and security of platforms and services for the world’s largest operator of exchanges and clearing houses for financial derivatives. With over 2,500 employees and total traded contracts valued at more than $1 quadrillion in 2014, the complexity and criticality of these systems is of significant global financial import.

Mike is the author of Cisco Internet Applications and Solutions (Cisco Press, 2002) and is a regular speaker at security conferences and panel discussions on cyber security threats and trends as well as a member of the World Economic Forum working groups on Quantum Security and Cybersecurity.