His experience includes:

• Author of the book, “The Gaza Marine Story, The Politics and Intrigue Behind Palestine’s Untapped Gas Wealth”. Published by Nomad Publishing in September 2025, the book tells the story of the Gaza Marine natural gas project from 1999 to present. He worked on the project from 2006-14 as a member of the project leadership team with responsibility for government relations and stakeholder management,

• An internationally recognised expert on transparency, accountability and good governance. He has acted as an expert witness to the Cullen public enquiry in British Columbia, Canada; is retained as a consultant by the EU Global Facility on AML/CFT and by the Council of Europe’s Economic Crime Division and has delivered transparency and accountability projects in more than 20 countries,

• Supporting the anti-money laundering unit of the Central Bank of Jordan develop regulations to implement a national register of the ultimate beneficial owners of companies as part of the Kingdom’s successful efforts to be removed from FATF’s grey list,

• Advice to the Gas for Gaza (G4G) project in 2020-21. He was part of the team that conducted a scoping study for the environmental and social impact assessment. His role including looking at gas supply options and stakeholder engagement,

• A human rights assessment of the Jerusalem light rail (JLR) in 2018. He led this project for a high-profile European engineering company that was considering a bid for the project. The findings included that there was a significant risk for the company in being complicit in human rights violations.

He creates and implements strategic approaches to political risk, due diligence and government relations issues, manages stakeholder engagement, undertakes peer learning events and designs and delivers training courses to government officials and other stakeholders in the political risk environment and on transparency and governance issues. He has also delivered projects in Albania, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Mexico, Namibia, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Senegal, South Africa, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkmenistan and Zambia.

Michael studied Arabic at the University of Edinburgh, including spending time in Cairo. After graduation, he worked in the newsroom of Middle East Broadcasting before joining Control Risks Group as a senior Middle East analyst. He then worked as a freelance consultant for three years before joining BG Group where he worked as a government and public affairs manager for more than 12 years. After leaving BG, he worked for a year with the leading political risk consultancy Eurasia Group as a director in its energy practice.

He is a keen long distance runner and has completed 36 marathons.