Michael Lee graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a B.S. in Electrical & Computer Engineering before earning his J.D. at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. He started practising in the early days of the internet with Pillsbury Madison & Sutro (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman) in Palo Alto, focusing on venture capital financings, IPOs, M&A for public and private companies, and SEC filings.

Michael then moved to Asia, joining the Taipei office of Squire Sanders & Dempsey (now Squire Patton Boggs), starting his practice in venture capital, private equity, M&A, and aircraft financing. He later expanded his Greater China practice as one of the founding partners of Pamir Law Group, with offices in Taipei and Shanghai.

Michael subsequently moved to Shanghai, joining the APAC legal team of Johnson Controls, Inc., initially as Senior Group Counsel, Asia, for the Building Efficiency business unit. Over the next decade, he held positions of increasing responsibility across different business units and regions of Asia Pacific. In one role, he led the Commercial Transactions team, covering legal operations for three business units throughout Asia Pacific. After the merger of Johnson Controls and Tyco, his roles changed several times to cover various countries, including Japan, Korea, and India, and multiple business units. In one such role, he led negotiations for a US$200 million investment and the formation of a joint venture with a state-owned company. In his final role as Legal Director for APAC Litigation and Hong Kong, Macau, & Taiwan, Michael managed all complex litigation matters throughout the Asia Pacific region while also covering day-to-day legal matters in his geography.

Michael now serves as General Counsel China for Schindler Elevator (China) Co. Ltd., where he and his team manage all legal and compliance matters throughout mainland China. To increase efficiency, he led his team to create an in-house litigation case management system to manage the thousands of cases handled by the team with zero external spending. Another notable project was when his team successfully defended an anti-dumping investigation in Argentina targeting elevator imports from China, resulting in no tariff being imposed and the dismissal of the original complaint. On the compliance side, besides day-to-day training, campaigns, and clearances, his team has a successful record of recovering significant amounts of illicit gains discovered during compliance investigations.

As a leader, Michael believes that managing a team begins with servant leadership and cultivating a culture of teamwork every day. By taking care of team members, ensuring they have the resources needed to perform well, and keeping an open atmosphere for new ideas to emerge, the team in turn prioritises organisational needs, takes ownership, and outperforms. This creates a stable foundation for the team to manage periods of instability and crises, which inevitably occur, and to recover with resilience.