Michael Morell

Mike brings over 14 years of experience in recruiting, technology sales and management to Riviera. Prior to co-founding Riviera Partners, he managed a boutique search firm, focused on early stage technology companies in the Silicon Valley.

Mike began his professional career as a Satellite Operations Officer and was responsible for all pre-launch, and early orbit operational planning for several NASA research missions. He also directed the development of a spacecraft trending software initiative, the largest Air Force system of this scale. Mike went on to become a Software Program Manager for the GPS Joint Program Office were he lead the multi million dollar development of the first software simulation tool used to determine navigation and its impact upon combat effectiveness. It has become the de facto standard for GPS effectiveness analysis across the DoD. The Military Operations Research Society has published him.

Mike began his sales career in semiconductor sales, representing Altera, Fujitsu, LSI Logic and Lucent. He grew the territory by over 1600% in less than 3 years and was the top ASIC sales manager in the Southwest for Fujitsu, closing over $8M of new business in named accounts.

Mike holds a BS Engineering from The Ohio State University and a MS Information Systems from the University of Southern California.

Mike was commissioned an Officer in the United States Air Force and separated as a Captain. He and his wife Dina reside in San Francisco, CA. He is a licensed pilot, enjoys fly-fishing, cycling, rugby and college football.