Christopher Michel is a photographer, investor & entrepreneur. He is the founder of Affinity Labs and Military.com and currently runs Nautilus Ventures, a seed venture fund. In 1999, he founded Military.com, an online portal for servicemembers, veterans and their families. In 2006, Michel founded Affinity Labs, which runs a portfolio of online professional communities. Both companies were purchased by Monster Worldwide (NYSE: MNST).
Nautilus Ventures portfolio companies include Palantir, Alliance Health, Zinch, BranchOut, Ne Timeas, Copay Solutions, GoodReads, Campfire Labs, RepairPal, MD Drinks, Course Hero, CR Reality, Connected, Pangea 3, Flour & Water, etc. Chris serves as a Director of International Data Group, Dale Carnegie, Kixeye and Castlight Health. He is also a Governor on the USO World Board and a Trustee of the Marine Corps University Foundation. He previously served on the boards of Alliance Health and EZBoard as well as the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI), the USS Arizona Memorial Fund, and the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation. He was also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School during the 2010-2011 school year.
Prior to his business career, Chris 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.
Chris serves on the oversight committee for the Division on Earth and Life Studies (DELS), one of six study divisions of the National Academies. He is also an advisor to the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), the nation's oldest nonprofit investigative news organization, and the Oxford Internet Institute (oii) at the University of Oxford. He is also an advisor to Maveron, a leading consumer focused venture capital firm.
In 2005, his book, The Military Advantage: A Comprehensive Guide to Your Military & Veterans Benefits, was published by Simon & Schuster. 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.
Chris is also a photographer. His collection includes photographs from unusual locations like Antarctica, Everest, Papua New Guinea, and at the edge of space (aboard a U-2 Spy Plane). His photographs can be found online at his gallery, ChristopherMichel. He has also published three fine art books, Monochromatic, Point 95 and Roof of the World.
Chris 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. He also holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Michel was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute and serves as a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
