Melissa Washington is the founder and CEO of the ‘Women Veterans Alliance’, a national organization that seeks to empower and positively impact the lives of female veterans. She has also established a non-profit organization called ‘Women Veterans Giving’. Both of these entities offer women veterans’ opportunities to gain valuable career experience and successfully integrate back into civilian life. It also helps to fund women veteran-owned businesses, which is often overlooked by other organizations.
Melissa served in the Navy for three years in active duty and five years in reserve. This experience helped her not only to travel the globe and learn valuable lessons but ultimately is what inspired her to help transform thousands of lives. Apart from being CEO of both of these organizations she is also a public speaker and has conducted more than 100 training workshops on a broad range of topics such as career reinvention and women veterans discovering their own self worth.
Melissa has also appeared on the Dr. Phil Show, NBC, CBS, Fox and others. She authored the book ‘Get Back to Work: Smart and Savvy Real-World Strategies to make Your Next Career Move’ in 2014. She has received many awards for her work such as Sacramento Business Journal’s prestigious 40 Under 40 award and was among the Journal’s Women Who Mean Business honorees in 2017. She has also been recognized by the National Association of Women Business Owners with an Outstanding Women Leader Visionary Award and received the 2016 Soroptimist Ruby Award, for her extensive work helping women veterans.