President & CEO
Mike Wynne is the President and CEO of EMERGE Community Development. Prior to this role, Mike served as vice president, program and center director and line staff person beginning in 1988 for Pillsbury United Communities, EMERGE’s heritage organization. In 2006, Mike launched EMERGE in its current form and several new initiatives including a public/private community economic development center in north Minneapolis that convenes private development partners, a community credit union, retail entrepreneurs and EMERGE Workforce programs; and the co-development of a $6.2 million 23-unit family supportive housing program that targets single homeless fathers and their families which opened in February 2007 in North Minneapolis with on-site services offered by EMERGE. He is currently in the final stages of a $4.84 million capital campaign to restore the Historic North Branch Library in North Minneapolis to create the new EMERGE Career and Technology Center, a project scheduled to break ground in 2012.
Mike’s programs have been featured in various national studies, articles and journals of best practices. He has been a featured presenter at many national and regional conferences and seminars including the Alternative Staffing Alliance, Minnesota Council on Non-profits, United Neighborhood Centers of America and Corporation for Supportive Housing. Mike serves on several non-profit boards of directors and is currently the Board Chair of Metropolitan Alliance of Connected Communities (MACC), a coalition of twenty Twin Cities human service organizations.
Mike attended Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, earning his BA in Sociology and Urban Studies. He has completed graduate certifications in non-profit management and finance at the University of St. Thomas, The James Shannon Institute for Renewing Community Leadership, The Executive Leadership Institute at the University of Michigan Schools of Social Work & Business; and the Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurship.
