My unique keynotes and workshops use art and storytelling to empower audiences. Together, we’ll tackle challenging issues with creativity, courage, and grace.
Hello, my name is Melanie Ho & I’m an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and executive education leader who has worked with Fortune 500 organizations, rising start-ups, leading universities, non-profits, and government groups.
I blend 20 years of leadership expertise with my perspective as an artist and multi-media storyteller. My unique keynotes and workshops start with today’s most important leadership concepts — and then come alive through the power of the imaginative arts.
Facilitating new ways of thinking
“Melanie has built businesses, served as an executive leader, and advised multi-billion-dollar institutions — and that’s only a fraction of the unique expertise she brings to her work as a speaker and facilitator. She also draws on her background as a storyteller, educator, and artist to facilitate her audience to new ways of thinking. Our sessions with Melanie are always creative, memorable, and actionable.”
— Yolanda Gorman, Chief of Staff and Special Advisor to the Chancellor, UCLA
A different kind of business book
Based on research, but told as a fast-paced novel, Beyond Leaning In: Gender Equity and What Organizations are Up Against is a silver medalist in the 2022 Axiom Awards, recognizing the world’s best business books. Previous Axiom winners include Nobel laureate Robert Shiller, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Pulitzer Prize winner Doris Kearns Goodwin, investor Raymond Dalio, NYT best-seller Dan Ariely, and entrepreneur Steve Case.
Also check out my #BeyondLeaningIn Webcomics and Podcast for more about the hidden challenges women face at work.
Most frequently-requested services
Keynote presentations
Interactive workshops
Customized professional development courses
In-day or multi-day retreat agenda development
One-on-one mentoring intensives
A variety of topics related to women in leadership, DEI, transformational leadership, workplace culture, and creativity & innovation.
Experience with some of the world’s most complex organizations
In any given week, you might find me leading presentations for businesses, government groups, non-profits, and organizations large and small. But I initially cut my teeth in consulting for higher education leaders: advising hundreds of college and university presidents, provosts, CFOs, and deans. I gained a special appreciation for the challenges of managing extreme complexity — whether aligning disparate stakeholders, balancing mission and margin, steering large-scale initiatives in matrixed environments, or confronting continuous public scrutiny and market disruption.
I continue to maintain a select higher ed practice and am honored to partner with The Chronicle of Higher Education to lead several Chronicle professional development programs open to college and university leaders, including the Leadership Transformation Collaborative and Women Leading Change.
Coming Soon: The Inside Man
When a group of professional women realizes their workplace is rigged against them by the ultimate "boy's club," they secretly recruit a down-on-his-luck actor to infiltrate as an undercover ally. Passing him off as a hot-shot consultant from corporate headquarters, Hank's real mission is to covertly amplify the women's overlooked ideas and help them gain power. Though originally intended to even the playing field, Hank soon discovers his own presumptions and privileges as he witnesses first-hand the subtle and pervasive biases the women navigate daily.
Using humor and playfulness to reveal difficult truths, THE INSIDE MAN empowers readers to find their voice, enhance their allyship, and collaborate in new ways for change.
What makes my approach distinctive
I’m founder of Strategic Imagination, a firm dedicated to the power of the imaginative arts to help organizations achieve transformational change. Fiction, theatre, comics, and other imaginative arts have the power to get us out of trapped mindsets; build empathy for colleagues, customers, and stakeholders; and facilitate bolder future visions than we thought possible. You’ll find the strategic imagination at the center of my work as a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator, as well as in my writing and art.
