Michael Burns has more than 20 years of experience in private equity and technology management. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zift, which provides essential digital parenting tools, insights and resources for families in a technology driven world. Zift acquired Net Nanny, the popular parental control software brand, in 2016. Michael has done multiple start-up ventures.

Michael was a founder and the Director of Business Development at Agere, which developed high-speed, multi-protocol network processors. Agere was acquired by Lucent Technologies and became the network processor division of Lucent Microelectronics. Michael later was founding chairman at Ciclon Semiconductor which spun out of Agere Systems and built the most advanced power transistors for the mobile and computing markets, including the iPhone.

Michael was a founder of Traffic.com, serving in various executive roles. Traffic.com is a provider of traffic applications serving the logistics, media, and telematics markets. Traffic went public on the NASDAQ and was eventually part of Nokia. Formerly, Michael was a Program Manager for electronics and systems integration programs with Lockheed Martin. In that capacity, he was responsible for integrating commercial networking products into high-performance aerospace and military platforms. Michael was an officer in the US Navy.

In addition, Michael worked at several institutional investors as a Managing Director at Alara Capital, Guggenheim Partners and TL Ventures. He focused on the technology, internet and communications.

Mike graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania's Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology. He has a B.S. degree in Finance from the Wharton School as well as B.S.E. and M.S.E. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Moore School. His master's thesis focused on applying engineering technology at the University of Pennsylvania Health System for diagnostic measurements. Mike graduated Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi, was a Benjamin Franklin Scholar, and authored several technical publications.