Michael Austin Dunn was born in Tucson, Arizona, on March 5, 1958. He married Linda Virginia Poulson in 1980. They are the parents of three children.
He received a bachelor of science degree in mass communications from the University of Utah in 1981. In 2008 he received a master of arts degree in communication from the University of Utah.
He has served in a number of Church callings, including full-time missionary in the Hawaii Honolulu Mission, ward Young Men president, counselor in a bishopric, bishop, high councilor, and stake president. He was president of the South Africa Johannesburg Mission from 2014 to 2017. At the time of his call, Elder Dunn had been serving as a member of the Twelfth Quorum of the Seventy in the Utah Area.
From 1995 to 2010, he was president of Dunn Communications, Inc. In 2010 he was named general manager of KUED (PBS). At the time of his call as a General Authority Seventy, he was the managing director of BYUtv and BYUradio.