ABOUT
I believe that there is a unique opportunity to advance
social change through communications & collective impact.
Who is Melissa K Blair?
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Melissa K Blair is a communication strategist and public health educator, and former start-up founder. She is passionate about health equity and social justice and has focused on both through her career, from shifting public policy to reduce family and domestic violence in Australia, to conducting community-based participatory research on what educators need to advance from public eduction across the US. Melissa is a skilled strategist and tactician, developing compelling campaigns and business strategies that move audiences to action. With a career spanning three continents, Melissa has worked with a variety of clients across non-profits, government agencies, and corporations to achieve programmatic, social impact and revenue objectives.
Melissa has led work with clients focused on upstream systems change, including the Ford Foundation, the Builders Initiative, NextFifty Initiative, State Government of Victoria, and Ontario Non-profit Housing Association. Prior to Purppl, Melissa was a Director at Spitfire Strategies, a national strategic communications firm, where she facilitated a coalition to shift the US food system to be more equitable and just, brought together international grantees to advance tech and digital privacy rights on a global scale and building communication plans to reduce the culling of sharks in oceans all over the world. Prior to Spitfire, Melissa was the Co-Founder and Brand Director of SportHosts, a start-up aiming to breaking down cultural boundaries through sports. Melissa let the communications team and growth of the business across Australia and into the USA with team partners including the Brooklyn Nets, San Francisco Giants, NYC Football Club and Melbourne Football Club. If you want communications to be both current and lasting, you want Melissa on your team. |
Melissa’s work experience began in the social change agency world working at Manifest Communications and Stephen Thomas Ltd in Toronto, Canada, where she led and managed the strategic and creative development of projects for Veterans Affairs Canada, Health Canada, Governor- General of Canada, Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada among others. She was then an Account Director at The Reputation Group in Melbourne, Australia leading powerful work on reducing family violence and increasing gender equality for the Australian Government and The Department of Premier and Cabinet with the Government of Victoria.
Blending creative pedagogy and current events, Melissa developed a course for Canada’s first online Masters of Public Health program at Brock University. Melissa has now taught this course to over 300 MPH and MBA students on how to effectively use business marketing strategies to advance public health and social change.
Melissa has been a keynote speaker at various events, including the World Social Marketing Conference, Leading Social Change conference, and numerous public-health, start-up and non-profit fundraising forums. She is an author of two textbook chapters on social marketing published by Oxford Press. She is the former External Affairs Committee Chair for the Social Marketing Association of North America (SMANA), and former Marketing Director on the board of the Australian Association for Social Marketing (AASM), former board member on with Adelante, a micro-finance non-profit organization based in Honduras, and currently belongs as a member in Kelowna Women in Business (KWIB) and Women in Leadership (WIL).
Melissa earned a Master of Arts degree from Middlesex University in the UK with a health communication and social change marketing. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in community health sciences and business from Brock University based in Canada. Melissa sees communication as essential to envisioning a more equitable future and as a tool for upstream policy change, sparking consciousness-raising, and building community power.
Blending creative pedagogy and current events, Melissa developed a course for Canada’s first online Masters of Public Health program at Brock University. Melissa has now taught this course to over 300 MPH and MBA students on how to effectively use business marketing strategies to advance public health and social change.
Melissa has been a keynote speaker at various events, including the World Social Marketing Conference, Leading Social Change conference, and numerous public-health, start-up and non-profit fundraising forums. She is an author of two textbook chapters on social marketing published by Oxford Press. She is the former External Affairs Committee Chair for the Social Marketing Association of North America (SMANA), and former Marketing Director on the board of the Australian Association for Social Marketing (AASM), former board member on with Adelante, a micro-finance non-profit organization based in Honduras, and currently belongs as a member in Kelowna Women in Business (KWIB) and Women in Leadership (WIL).
Melissa earned a Master of Arts degree from Middlesex University in the UK with a health communication and social change marketing. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in community health sciences and business from Brock University based in Canada. Melissa sees communication as essential to envisioning a more equitable future and as a tool for upstream policy change, sparking consciousness-raising, and building community power.