Mike Hayes
Former Commanding Officer of SEAL Team TWO, Author of Never Enough & Mission Driven
Mike Hayes
Former Commanding Officer of SEAL Team TWO, Author of Never Enough & Mission Driven
Biography
A 20-year veteran of the US Navy SEALs, two White House administrations and senior executive roles in the private sector, Mike Hayes translates the lessons he has learned to help organizations develop stronger leaders and improve their bottom line. Hayes has led and learned from many crises, from his service in the SEALs throughout South America, Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, including the conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan, to national issues in the White House Situation Room or to sensitive corporate strategy in the boardroom.
Mike is the author of the best-seller, Never Enough: A Navy SEAL Commander on Living a Life of Excellence, Agility, and Meaning, and Mission Driven: The Path to a Life of Purpose and he donates all profits to “The 1162 Foundation”, a 501c3 he founded to pay off mortgages for Gold Star families.
Hayes’ last job as a military leader in the Navy was as the Commanding Officer of SEAL Team TWO, which included 10 months as the Commander of a 2,000-person Special Operations Task Force in Southeastern Afghanistan. A White House Fellow (‘08/’09), he served two years as Director, Defense Policy and Strategy at the National Security Council. In the Bush Administration, Hayes was responsible for the START Treaty, where he produced a new proposed START Treaty and conducted negotiations with the Russians in Moscow. In the Obama administration, Hayes led the White House response to President Obama’s first major foreign policy showdown—the hijacking of the Maersk Alabama off the coast of Somalia. Before the White House Fellowship, Hayes served as the Deputy Commander for all Special Operations in Anbar Province, Iraq.
Beyond his military and governmental service, Mike is currently Managing Director, Insight Partners, a global software investment firm based in New York with $80B+ in regulatory assets under management and 800+ portfolio companies across every stage of growth. Previously, he was the Chief Operating Officer at VMware where he led where led the company's worldwide business operations, their SaaS transition, and the successful acquisition into Broadcom for $69B, and SVP and Head of Strategic Operations at Cognizant Technology where he ran the $2B P&L for Cognizant’s global financial services clients. Mike also served in Chief of Staff and COO roles at Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest and most successful hedge fund.
In customized presentations, Hayes pulls out the overarching lessons he has learned to discuss topics such as leadership, how organizational design ties to outcomes, the essentials for decision-making under duress, how cultures are a determinant of winning, crisis management, dealing with adversity, conflict resolution, communication, motivation, focused execution, workforce optimization, setting strategy, enhancing innovation, and personal and organizational impact. Drawing on examples from his illustrious career, he shares leadership principles such as teaching individuals how to think rather than what to think, how a leader’s job is not to make the best decision but rather to make sure the best decision gets made and how comfort with discomfort is a key tenet of high-performance individuals and organizations.
Hayes has spoken at the White House, Harvard and Goldman Sachs alongside President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. A Navy SEAL Commanding Officer overseas, a former leader in the National Security Council and an experienced senior business leader in the private sector, Hayes’ principles are sure to resonate with any audience.
Hayes holds an M.A. in Public Policy from Harvard’s J.F.K. School of Government and received his B.A. from Holy Cross College, where he was an active Big Brother. His military decorations include the Bronze Star for valor in combat in Iraq, a Bronze Star for Afghanistan and the Defense Superior Service Medal from the White House. Hayes’ work has been published by the RAND Corporation, he is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the board of directors of Immuta, a data governance company, American Equity Life, and of the National Medal of Honor Museum. He is a life-long Sox/Pats fan, but most enjoys laughing with his wife, Anita, and their daughter, Maeson.
Speaker Videos
Goal Setting
The Hard Things Drive Excellence
Decision Making
Never Enough
Team, Teammate, Self
Moving Beyond 99%
The Edge of Comfortable
It Takes Teammates
When to Lead, When to Follow
Speech Topics
Never Enough: Excellence, Agility, and Meaning in High-Performance Organizations
Most organizations can articulate what high performance looks like. Far fewer have a clear model for how to build and sustain it — especially when conditions are changing and pressure is high. Drawing on the three-part framework at the heart of his bestselling book, Hayes explores what elite teams in the military, government, and business actually have in common: a commitment to continuous improvement, the structural agility to adapt without losing cohesion, and a sense of shared purpose that holds people together when things get hard. The examples are drawn from his own experience across all three arenas, and the takeaways are specific enough to apply immediately.
Mission Driven: Purpose-Led Leadership Through Change
The leaders who navigate disruption most effectively aren’t always the most technically skilled — they’re the ones who know what they stand for before the pressure hits. Hayes draws on his own major transitions across five careers to build a practical framework for purpose-led leadership at the individual and organizational level. The talk is particularly well suited to organizations navigating transformation, leadership succession, or the challenge of sustaining culture through rapid growth. Audiences leave with a clear process for defining their mission and using it as a decision-making tool when the stakes are highest.
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