Michael Franz
Founder & CEO
Michael Franz is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Company and a Manager. He has built and led successful teams in both large corporations and start up enterprises. He has a deep experience in international ventures with an emphasis in Asia. Mr. Franz is accomplished at achieving high growth results against larger and stronger competitors and consensus building in diverse environments.
​Prior to founding PreferUS, Mr. Franz was the CEO of the Texas Back Institute, which is one of the world's largest multi-disciplinary spine institutes. Prior to Texas Back Institute he has had a wide range of experiences and successes in his career. Mr. Franz founded and grew Murata Business Systems to $264 million in its first 48 months of operations, taking them from the 16th ranked fax company in the US to number one in four years. Upon joining Sprint, Mr. Franz served as President of Sprint Wholesale, a business unit that he started and grew to $1.2 billion in 24 months. He then served as both President, Sprint Wholesale and Chief of Staff, Long Distance Division. His last assignment at Sprint was President of Sprint Business where he was responsible for the $6 billion, eight-thousand person organization, that provided voice and data communications products and services to all business and government customers of Sprint's long distance division.
During his tenure at Chardan Capital, a merchant banking venture that employed a dual strategy of investment banking and advisory / consulting services for China-based companies, Mr. Franz led efforts on a successful Series A fund raise while also establishing the China-side support team. During his tenure, the group was successful in completing multiple transactions and taking three Chinese companies public to the NASDAQ exchange. Mr. Franz has also served as a consultant Chairman and CEO to several companies focusing on successfully establishing sources of funding, redirecting the management teams, and completion of the business plans.
Mr. Franz graduated from Santa Clara University with a Bachelor of Arts in General Humanities and a Master of Business Administration. Mr. Franz has served on numerous boards including the National Paralysis Foundation, where he served as Chairman of the Board, the Dallas Rehabilitation Institute, The Texas Back Institute Research Foundation and the Children's Mercy Hospital of Kansas City.