Presenter Bio - Michael Macklin

Michael Macklin is a higher education strategist, and consultant whose career has been defined by building bridges between institutional innovation and learner outcomes. With over fifteen years of leadership experience spanning community colleges and university where he has led initiatives at the intersection of workforce development, digital credentialing, and post-secondary access.

Mike's work on digital credentialing is grounded in how institutions can leverage micro-credentials, badges, and stackable pathways to meet the evolving demands of learners and employers alike. Mike’s work in higher education has been at the intersection of non-credit workforce training and credit-bearing programs. He has scaled digital learning strategies for a community college system and a university navigating similar questions about how credentials stack, articulate, and signal value to employers. These experiences gave him a front-row seat to both the institutional politics and the technical infrastructure required to make stackable credentialing work in practice, not just in theory.

Today, Mike leads CrescoVia Consulting, where he advises organizations on credential strategy, training programs, grant development, and program design. He brings a practitioner's lens to a conversation too often dominated by vendor pitches and policy abstractions focusing instead on the architectural decisions, faculty engagement models, and learner experience design that determines whether a micro-credential pathway delivers on its promise or becomes another initiative that stalls at the pilot stage.