As one of only a small number of female tech leaders globally, Melissa is passionate about achieving gender equity in the workplace. This passion led her to found Inner Wings, reflecting her personal commitment to building confidence in young girls and helping to close the gender gap from an early age. 

Since 2023, she has served as Chair and CEO of Kyriba, where she has led the company through a period of record growth for the business. Today, Kyriba serves close to 3,000 customers in 170 countries. Prior to this, she was the first woman to take a multi-billion Euro company, SUSE, public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Under her leadership, SUSE experienced remarkable growth.  

Melissa is also a mentor to women in business and a vocal supporter of STEM careers for women. She was the inaugural chair of the 30% Club’s Technology Working Group, a global campaign to boost female representation at board and C-Suite level across the world’s largest companies and has authored seven children’s books.  

In her previous UK Government role, she was a Non-Executive Director on the Advisory Board of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). 

She has also held senior executive roles at big tech businesses across Europe and the US, like SAP, Salesforce and IBM. Currently, she is a Member of the Supervisory Board of Porsche, and a Non-Executive Director at J.P. Morgan Europe.