Melissa Beight

Senior Associate

2023 - Current

Altai Ventures is an early stage venture capital firm made up of operators and investors who incubate and invest in early-stage companies within insuretech, fintech and enterprise software (as it relates to financial services).

Board Director

2024

Development Committee & Chair of Awards Program

Global Development Lead

2020 - 2024

- Built, managed, and recruited development team (5+ people) + awards team (10+ people) - Developed sponsorship strategy, processes, and packages - Ran Fellows Program (recruitment, strategy, goal setting, mentored all fellows) - Launched WIN’s first individual giving campaign, Raise to Rise (~$17K in donations and sponsorships) and established individual giving infrastructure - Hired first ED (now CEO role) and established HR systems and onboarding - Co-founded and launched Women in Innovation Awards, WIN’s flagship program and largest revenue generator, which has recognized 20+ innovators in the past 2 years and garnered corporate sponsorships from Yotpo, co:collective, frog, EY, Lowe’s Innovation Lab, Ramp, and Company Ventures

Member

2023

Senior Engagement Manager

2023 - 2023

Engagement Manager

2022 - 2023

Senior Associate, Innovation

2021 - 2022

Vivaldi is a global business reinvention firm comprised of growth strategists, innovators, visionary technologists, and disruptive creatives.

Product & UX Strategy Lead

2019 - 2021

Led user experience, customer experience, and product innovation engagements for C-suite and VP level stakeholders at early-stage startups, F100s, and F500s. Recent accomplishments include: Collaborated with engineering and additional internal stakeholders to define MVP for an early-stage SaaS startup. Prototyped, tested, and refined MVP (in Figma) Led lean experimentation and product strategy for financial services company: Conducted user research and led multi-disciplinary stakeholders to establish a product vision and shared set of priorities that met the most important customer needs Increased customer adoption of a food delivery platform by scoping, selling, and managing a multi-phase research and strategy engagement. Collaborated with key client stakeholders and presented prioritized opportunities to 16+ executives across all functions, including the CEO, COO, Chief Analytics Officer, VP of Engineering, and VP of Product Co-facilitated a 3 day rapid experience design lab for 30+ stakeholders in a $1.6 billion education corporation, working closely with VP of Product Development to develop the lab based on their goals, resulting in tested prototypes of a new dashboard Determined which product a financial institution should launch by collaborating with design, research, and engineering to conduct usability and A/B testing on 4 prototypes (2 Android, 2 iPhone) with 50+ internal stakeholders over 3 days and analyzing data and input from engineers to inform recommendation to Product Managers Moderated 1:1 user interviews and conducted competitive analyses to generate actionable insights for 15+ cross-industry clients including First Republic Bank, Chick-fil-A, Comcast, and Create Me, to develop new product features or experiences, improve product marketing, optimize existing platforms, or refine business requirements and user stories Client industries included: Financial Services, Healthcare, Retail, Food & Beverage, Technology, Non-Profit, Education

Research & Strategy Associate

2018 - 2019

Motivate Design is a user experience-led innovation company, focused on conducting user research to help companies better understand their customers and designing high-level concepts to define the right customer experience. Motivate’s insight-powered design approach integrates customer insights into the product and service design process to help clients see around corners and over the horizon. Motivate Design also runs the WIT Studio, a creative workshop to get people to solve a business problem through a simplified version of design thinking.

eCommerce

2017 - 2018

Design Strategist

2016 - 2017

• Finalist, 2017 NYCxDesign Award

Sales Associate

2013 - 2017

Sales Associate

2012 - 2013