Mike Baker is a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral and the founder of The AstraTellus Group, a strategic advisory firm. Over more than 30 years, Mike served in the Navy as an E-2C Hawkeye Naval Flight Officer, the leader of the Navy’s Foreign Area Officer Community, and most recently as the Director of Operations at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
A U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Mike spent much of his career as a Foreign Area Officer leading operations across South Asia, the Indian Ocean, the greater Middle East, and Africa. He served as the U.S. Senior Defense Official and Defense Attaché to India, giving him firsthand experience at the center of the U.S.-India defense relationship, and held additional postings across the Indian Ocean region (Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius, and Seychelles), in Turkey and in Northern Iraq, where he worked as a liaison to Turkish Special Forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He also directed Strategy & Plans for the U.S. FIFTH Fleet in Bahrain and directed the Asia-Pacific Division at the Defense Intelligence Agency, overseeing U.S. defense attachés across the region. Mike is a founding member of United States Africa Command. He began his career as a Naval Flight Officer flying the E-2C Hawkeye, deploying across the Indo-Pacific region.
Mike holds a B.S. in History from the U.S. Naval Academy and an M.A. in International Relations from Istanbul Bilgi University, earned as an Olmsted Scholar, a Department of Defense program immersing officers in a foreign language and culture. He was an International Affairs Fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations and speaks Turkish and French.
Since retiring, Mike has founded The AstraTellus Group, a strategic advisory firm built on the idea of connecting the strategic to the tactical — helping organizations turn high-level strategy into real-world execution. The firm draws on his operational and intelligence background to advise on geo-strategic risk, coalition-building, and international business across South Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and Africa.
