Mike Gallagher is a CEO/Founder/Operator with 40 years of experience in the Telecom Industry, having created or worked for many successful ventures. Mike can both derive high level strategy and manage day to day outcomes and has proven leadership experience having built several highly performing management teams.

Mike currently consults for various private equity clients, many of whom were at one time investors in his entrepreneurial telecom enterprises. He is currently working as an Executive Advisory Board member for Pamlico Capital, based in Charlotte, NC. Mike also serves on the Boards of Triage Partners, Broadband Infrastructure Group (BIG) and Paxio Inc. Mike has direct and recent experience in Fiber to the Home (FTTH) networks having worked as an executive at Vexus Fiber starting in 2016 until its sale and consolidation into Metronet/T-Mobile in 2024.

Beginning in 2011 Mike served as CEO of IBBS Technologies, a DOCSIS provisioning engine for Tier 2/3 cable companies and VOIP provider. He restructured IBBS and sold the company to Momentum Telecom in 2014. Mike then served on the Momentum Board until its successful sale to Courtsquare Capital in 2018.

From 1998 to 2010 Mike was the founding CEO of FDN Communications, which eventually merged into Nuvox communication in 2007. The combined entity was eventually sold to publicly traded Windstream Communications in 2010, creating a liquidity event for Mike’s shareholders and employees. From its inception as a facilities based broadband and voice carrier, FDN Communications raised multiple rounds of venture equity and bank debt and became one of the few profitable and successful CLECs of its era.

FDN also acquired and integrated several co-geographic competitors, including MPOWER and LeadingNet Technologies which allowed it to achieve sufficient scale and EBITDA margins greater than CLECs many times its size. Initial investors saw 100% of their capital returned with a modest gain, while follow on investors were able to achieve 5x MOIC returns. Mike then became a Board Member at Nuvox and ran the combined company’s sales organization until the Windstream transaction.

Metro Access Networks (MAN) was Mike’s first entrepreneurial venture and immediately proceeded FDN Communications. Mike co-founded and ran this Texas focused local fiber venture, which built over 500 metro fiber route miles in the DFW, Austin, San Antonio and Houston markets. MAN was founded in 1993 with a $40M equity commitment from CenturyLink (Lumen) and was sold in 1997 to Brooks Fiber Properties, netting investors an eventual 8x return.

The early part of Mike’s career was spent in direct sales, selling data communications or metro fiber networks to Fortune 1000 customers. From 1986 to 1993 Mike worked at the original long haul fiber provider Williams Communications as well as metro fiber carrier Intermedia Communications.

Mike has a degree in Mathematics from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and has attended a certificate level course in Data Communications from Washington University in St. Louis. Mike serves on the board at the Center for Entrepreneurial studies at Rollins Crummer School of Business and is a volunteer at Catholic Charities of Central Florida.