Melissa is the current Founder of LIFL, Inc. Consultancy providing consulting to Private Equity, Venture Capital, U/HNWI Investors, Management Consultant Firms and Startups on AI, ML, Data, Data Observability, Data Quality, SaaS, Software, Martech, Ad Products, Advertising, Content, Content Delivery, Strategy, Management and Leadership and Film fundraising. LIFL Inc. also has a publishing arm for songwriting that Melissa has been engaged in since her youth, as well as exploration of screenplays, amongst expanding on other writing, public speaking and future podcast content.
In addition, Melissa is moonlighting as a venture scout for seed and early-stage starts=ups with focus on women and diverse founders--with great gratitude and thanks to ongoing guidance from mostly, more-than-decade-long friends and mentor VC partners, angel investors and/or retired founders.
Melissa's last role was at the top North American Accounts Enterprise & Strategic Account Executive at Unravel Data, a Series-D, more than $100M VC backed, SaaS and software platform enabling data observability, intelligence & automation throughout the modern data stacks for leading global Fortune 500 enterprise growth, on-prem, hybrid and cloud-native companies! Every company is a data company!
Just prior, pre and post-pandemic Melissa was founding, principal consultant of AdHoc (A Desire to Help Others Consultancy) for non-profits, political campaigns and private companies via fundraising of major gifts/ contributions, foundation and charity creation and formation, private company revenue donation match (i.e. advertising spend $1 for $1 donation matches and more) and various advisory on how to help others in all areas of an organization big, small, new or old! Clients include STOKED.org and Holly Lynch - Democrat for Congress - NY's 10th District Exploration Campaign for fundraising, individual UHNWI clients' private foundation formation advising, and early and advertising/media company revenue donation matching.
Previously and before an early-2019 US cross-country, 21-state, solo extended road trip, Melissa built great things since 2015 at Time, Inc, acquired in Feb 2018 by now Dotdash Meredith steering go-to-market sales strategy and top-industry execution as Ad Product Marketing Team Lead for Digital Ad and Native products across Meredith's 40+ US digital media brands for >70 social, display, branded/native custom content, influencer, sponsorship and shopper ad products across 40 Meredith brands with >1K partners/advertisers via consultation, education, thought leadership, trainings, material creation, pitches, brainstorms and product development.
Prior to that, Melissa cut her teeth at boutique advertising agency o2kl strategizing, producing and managing TV, digital and print on fun campaigns like launching "Technology for the Forgotten" with AARP's RealPad and WellPoint's LiveHealth Online bringing doctor's into your living room virtually, amongst many other award winning and and innovative big brand ideas.
Beforehand Melissa helped launch Nature Education, internal startup division of Nature Publishing Group, as sole marketer for the first-ever, interactive, digital biology college/AP courses e-textbook.
Before then, Melissa:
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was first hire, equity holder and Head of Marketing at startup Thryll launching the action sports gear flash sale site brand, membership and community via no-budget marketing strategies
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provided digital marketing strategy within cross-industry boutique agency Underscore Marketing working predominantly with pharmaceutical and retail clients
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ran consultancy, From Idea 2 Launch advising internet startups, businesses and personal brands for clients including pre-launch Facebook social-lending and crowd-funding app, pre-launch local merchants online couponing solution and pre-launch women's social/media brand
Other work experience includes working at Terrapinn producing B2B media and conferences across the US and Latin America, as well as working at VFA (acquired by Accruent and now a Gordian solution), an international building assessment services and software provider.
Even further back, Melissa had a former life segment in law. Directly following graduation from Boston University with a pre-law designation, she worked at large law firm WilmerHale in their IP department filing patents and facilitating IP litigation. She next went on to a most interesting first-year of law school as a scholarship recipient at Suffolk University Law School and an incredible first-year summer studying in the American University Washington College of Law international business law and human rights program held in London, Brussels, Paris and Geneva before flying directly to Miami for prestigious selection as a judicial intern to Federal Judge and Supreme Court Justice Nominee, Honorable Cecilia Altonaga, Melissa learning in literal trial by fire watching the Jose Padilla criminal trial proceedings, first General Manuel Noriega extradition hearing, Chuckie Taylor hearing and collaborating on legal memoranda written into law by Judge Altonaga.