Our Team

From 2002 to 2024, Melissa was the founding President and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc., an innovative nonprofit philanthropy service launched by the Rockefeller family. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ mission is to accelerate philanthropy in pursuit of a just world. Melissa built RPA into one of the world’s leading philanthropic advisory, grantmaking, research and project management services, facilitating more than US$500 million per year across dozen of countries in all major issue areas. Under her leadership, RPA developed the “Philanthropy Roadmap” series of donor guides with support from the Gates Foundation.

She also developed “The Theory of the Foundation” research program and is the author of multiple reports in that initiative. A frequent speaker, Melissa has been a guest lecturer at universities across the U.S., Europe. Latin America and Asia.

As a widely recognized expert in philanthropy, Melissa has been profiled and interviewed in major media.

An adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Business School, Melissa is also a director/trustee of Candid, Equality Now, and the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia University.

In 2023, Melissa was a Bellagio Center fellow. Melissa holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.