Melissa Fenton

Council of Urban Professionals

Melissa has over 25 years of experience in the not-for-profit and corporate sectors, with expertise in fundraising, finance and operations, strategic planning, communications, real-estate, and event planning. Melissa has dedicated her career to helping underserved communities and creating sustainable business models for long-term organizational success.

Melissa has worked with senior leadership and boards of Fortune 500’s, not-for-profits and public, private, and charter schools. During her career she has held various senior executive leadership roles, including Executive Director of City Lights Youth Theatre, Chief Development & Communications Officer at Bronx Prep Charter School and Director of Individual Giving at New-York Historical Society.

She served as Principal Strategy Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers assisting Fortune 500 companies with strategy, financial forecasting, and branding. As part of a select critical team, she executed the merger between PW and Coopers & Lybrand. She trained hundreds of MBA interns in writing and presentation skills, led on-campus recruitment efforts, and was an active leader in diversity, equity, and inclusion programming for the firm. Melissa’s civic duty began as a paralegal in the Major Economic Crimes Bureau of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, conducting fraud and racketeering investigations and second-seating trials.

Melissa leads the business development relationships and with over 100 corporate partners, executing high-caliber thought-leadership power forums and summits in finance, law, media & entertainment, tech and sports. She has grown the CUP community to over 18,000 in NY and LA and spearheaded a new annual three-day Summit in Martha’s Vineyard focused on thought leadership in investment management and entrepreneurship. She co-leads the CUP NY Fellows Program and works with the CUP NY Alumni Fellows Leadership Committee on Alumni Convenings and the Fellowship selection process.

Melissa is a singer and hails from New York City.