Melissa Hale Woodman

Pronouns: she/her/hers

Melissa traces her passion for challenging corporate power back to the playground: “Growing up, I hated bullies,” she says.

As an adult, already challenging unjust power dynamics as part of the Free Tibet Movement, she became incensed as she read more broadly about how transnational corporations systematically use their power to exploit people in the Global South. (She cites Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine” and “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” by John Perkins as two important reads on this front.)  And she wanted to do something about it.

So, she came to Corporate Accountability as a grant writer in 2012. Today, Melissa channels her passion for challenging bullies into her work overseeing the foundations program and talking with members across the country about how they can join our movement. She enjoys building relationships with funders and inspiring them to propel us forward with their time, money, and expertise.

Prior to joining staff, Melissa was the Communications Director at Culture Project, New York City’s leading social justice theater company and the Resource Director for the International Rescue Committee in Boston. She holds a bachelor’s in art history from Princeton, and a master’s in drama therapy from New York University. She would be perfectly happy to stay on a desert island if she had access to 80s music, the writings of Patti Smith, and a closet full of Iris Apfel’s clothes.