Michael K. Hole, M.D., MBA

Michael Hole, M.D., MBA, FAAP, is physician, professor, researcher, author and entrepreneur at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is joint faculty at Dell Medical School and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Hole is an assistant professor of Pediatrics, Population Health and Public Policy, as well as founder and managing partner at Opportunity Ventures, a portfolio of companies addressing poverty, homelessness, recidivism, social isolation, unsafe child care and other nonmedical drivers of health.

Hole is a “street pediatrician” onboard Children’s Health Express, a mobile medical clinic serving Greater Austin’s hardest-to-reach, high-risk families and youths. He teaches “Solutions for America’s Children in Poverty,” an annual, graduate-level course on human-centered design and entrepreneurship for students studying medicine, business, social work, policy, nursing, architecture, engineering and law.

Hole started his career as a social work case manager fighting child trafficking in middle America before leading international development campaigns to help fund a primary school in Uganda, an orphanage for children with disabilities abandoned during Haiti’s 2010 earthquake and a new food product serving 50,000 young people who are malnourished yearly. Forbes Magazine named him to its “30 Under 30” list after starting StreetCred, a national nonprofit helping low-income families file taxes and build wealth while they wait in doctors’ offices.

Hole, a first-generation college graduate from rural Indiana, was Butler University’s top student before earning his doctor of medicine and MBA from Stanford University with concentrations in public management, community health and social innovation. He completed pediatrics residency at Harvard.

In 2019, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush named Hole a Presidential Leadership Scholar. He and his wife, Kristen, live in Austin, where she is associate commissioner for the Texas Education Agency.