Michael Cinquino

What happens when we stop performing and start connecting?

Michael has spent his career finding out.

He began as a U.S. Navy Rescue Swimmer, where staying present under extreme conditions was essential to safety and mission success. After the military he trained as an actor, earning a BA in Acting and Directing from DeSales University and an MFA in Acting from Rutgers University, where he worked directly with Sanford Meisner protégé William Esper. That training deepened his understanding of attunement, embodiment, and what becomes possible when we get out of our own way and connect meaningfully with others.

Michael carried that understanding into a successful career as a portrait photographer in New York City, where the work taught him something acting school had begun: that the most powerful thing you can do for another person is make them feel safe enough to be seen.

Ready for a change of pace, he was introduced through a mutual friend to the founders of the CIO Strategy Exchange.

He spent the following decade behind closed doors with senior Chief Information Officers from Fortune 70 organizations and major public agencies. In those off-the-record rooms he saw a consistent truth: innovation and trust do not emerge from politeness or impression management. They emerge when people feel safe enough to think out loud, name the real tension, and stay in contact.

Taking what he had learned at the CIO Strategy Exchange into the classroom, Michael developed and successfully piloted Drop the Act, A Rehearsal Space for Your Real Life™, as a course for undergraduate students at the University of New Hampshire's Paul College of Business and Economics. Over five semesters it worked..

Today his work lives in three connected expressions of one core idea:

SoHo Creative Studio helps business owners and professional service firms build trust with their audiences through authentic video and podcast content. Because authentic connection is the fastest path to trust.

Drop the Act, A Rehearsal Space for Real Life™ is a workshop and methodology for individuals and teams who want to communicate with more confidence, clarity, and genuine human presence. Athletes have the practice field. Actors have the rehearsal room. Drop the Act is the psychologically safe rehearsal space to practice and get better at real human interaction, so that more meaningful relationships are possible in business and in life.

His clinical practice: While completing a second Master's degree in Clinical Mental Health from Northwestern University, Michael is currently interning at Manhattan Therapy, where his work is rooted in the belief that quality of our lives is shaped by the quality of our relationships. He works relationally with clients navigating change who want to show up more fully in their relationships as who they really are.