Michael McGuire

Founder/CEO/Professor

Michael is a lifelong entrepreneur, leader and educator with multiple venture starts over a distinguished career.

Since 2018, Michael has taught Entrepreneurship at Columbia University. He began teaching international business and entrepreneurship at Oxbridge Academic Programs in 2015. He is an Advisor for the Dean’s Challenge Grant, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia, a Judge for Columbia Venture Competition and a Mentor for the Lab to Market Accelerator Network Columbia Tech Ventures. He is a coach for Babson’s Coaching for Leadership and Teamwork Program and has served as a mentor for Goldman Sachs “10KSB” program and a tutor at Columbia’s Community Impact. He has an MIA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, a BA from Columbia University, and a BS in Entrepreneurial Studies from Babson College.

After starting his career at Manufacturers Hanover Trust (now JPMorgan Chase), Michael followed his passion for start-ups and founded ARIA Worldwide, Inc., a global commodity trade and structured finance company. His second startup was ARIASYS Inc., an offshore software development company, with teams in the US and Europe that focused on building high availability, scalable trading systems. From there he leveraged his team to launch ARIA TV, a streaming media platform, which provided European television and cycling content to global viewers in a pre-YouTube world. His non-profit startup, the ITP Foundation, raised over $500k and funded research on ITP, a rare bleeding disorder. Michael has been on the board of Stillwater Mining (NYSE) and Plug Power (NASDAQ). He formely managed a venture fund, Twelve22 Capital Management LLC. Until November 2022, he was the GP of a partnership that was the majority investor in Symbridge, a digital asset exchange and broker dealer, where Michael was the Co-Founder and CEO from 2019-2021 and Chairman from 2021-2022. He built Symbridge from an idea to a 45-person high growth fintech startup. Michael has raised over $50 million in financing for his startups. He has been the Founder/CEO and builder of high performing international teams for 25+ years. Michael currently focuses on fintech, Web3, tokenization and education opportunities.He is on the Board of Advisors for the Codos Foundation. He is a dual citizen of the USA and Switzerland. He was a Finalist for Ernst & Young - Entrepreneur of the Year and is a 5-time Ironman Finisher.