Mel has a rare ability to turn a founder’s vision
into an organization built to deliver it.
Dave Monahan,
Serial Founder & CEO
Are you in the messy middle of growth?
Founders handle moving the business forward.
They call me when it's time to build the business around it.
The founder didn’t call me because they wanted HR.
They called because the company was growing fast, and the people and organizational infrastructure hadn’t kept pace.
As employee #24, I built the systems, leadership, and organizational foundation required to scale the company and position it for M&A.
Years later, I put that foundation to the test through an acquisition by the company’s largest competitor, leading organizational redesign, integration, leadership alignment, and change management.
Today, I work with serial founders scaling companies through M&A.
Position for M&A.
Scale Begins with Trust.
The MELT Method™
Meet yourself honestly.
Examine what brought you to this point.
Let go and give yourself permission to do it a different way.
Transform intentionally.
Emotional Intelligence +
Organizational & Operational Intelligence
Over thirty successfully completed M&A transactions in his career.
This is what this CFO had to say about Mel…
When Kleer and Membersy came together in a new PE-backed platform to form Clerri, a key business risk was creating a strong, unified culture after merging two teams that had been rivals, based in two disparate locations. That kind of divide can quietly erode a company from the inside and undermine its future success even when the financials may look fine on paper.
Melissa was a key member of the leadership team during the integration, responsible for defining and building the culture of the combined business. She identified risks early and owned the outcomes. Melissa spent real time understanding what was actually happening beneath the surface on both sides, addressing people's concerns directly as the integration unfolded, and building the people strategy and systems to deliberately knit the two organizations into one culture instead of leaving it to chance. Within six months of launch, she brought the entire team together for an all-hands gathering in Philadelphia that helped solidify the group, build real bonds among the teams, and unify the focus on moving forward together. The Board and Executive Team relied on Melissa as a trusted partner throughout this critical phase, and she played a key role in the successful launch of Clerri.
Stuart Lodge,
CFO at Clerri
About Mel
Mel Richardson is a Chief of Scale who helps founders build companies that can outgrow them, through mergers and acquisitions. After years helping companies navigate rapid growth, mergers, acquisitions, and leadership transitions, she discovered that the most challenging ‘people problems’ are often business problems at their core.
Mel brings a builder’s mindset to complexity, creating the leadership, systems, and organizational foundation companies need to scale. Her measure of success is simple: the greatest compliment she can receive is that you can now thrive without her.
What team members say about Mel
When I started working with Melissa, one of the first things I noticed about her was who came to her. Executives brought her hard problems before they became crises. Employees went to her because they trusted her and knew she cared about them.
That combination is rare, and she lived it every day. She wasn't just running a department, she was helping run the business. She could take a direction from leadership that was still half-formed and turn it into a plan the whole company could act on, then build the systems and the team to actually deliver it. Working for her changed how I think about People Operations and business, and it still shapes how I work every day.
Sarah Colletti,
People Operations Generalist at Clerri