“In all the challenges I’ve had, I realized the common ingredient was me. ”
— Melissa N. Aldridge
Her Story of Success…
Melissa N. Aldridge is the Director of Corporate Strategy and Development for Unum Group and the new COO and CFO of Her Story of Success. These roles allow her to fulfill her twin passions of deriving actionable insights to transform businesses and positively impacting women and families.
A talent for seeing the big picture and executing on details has enabled Melissa to have unique experiences in corporate strategy, investment portfolio management, technology commercialization, operations and finance for startups, and venture and angel capital funding. She is a trusted advisor and partner of business leaders and has held leadership roles in organizations ranging from not-for-profits to Fortune 500 companies.
Melissa serves entrepreneurship and venture capital community as an investment committee member of the Launch Tennessee Innovation Capital Continuum Fund.
In this episode
Host, Leah Hayes, introduces Melissa Aldridge as her new business partner with Her Story of Success. They discuss Melissa’s incredible background, what led her to join Her Story of Success, and some of what they are excited about in 2020 for Her Story of Success. She gets personal and shares how the experience of becoming a single mother and the process of doing the inner work necessary to move forward led to growth both professionally and personally.
Melissa shares some of what she learned as a listener of Her Story of Success and how the common theme she felt in all the episodes was a sense of belonging, which was inspiring & motivating during that time of growth in her journey.
Melissa and Leah reflect on their accomplishments and share some of the exciting opportunities coming in 2020 for the Her Story of Success community.
In This Episode:
- Melissa discusses why she chose to return to a corporate position and while ultimately Unum was the best fit for her (1:43).
- Melissa talks about how company culture affected her growth, “I never realized how much culture mattered until I didn’t have a good one” (14:10).
- Leah outlines all the work and research she and Melissa did to vet their compatibility, and why they were ultimately a match as business partners (23:20).
- Why Melissa ultimately made the time to assess what she wanted from her career, by taking herself on as a client and “decoupling her passion from her paycheck” (26:22).
- The AH-HA moment that turned a switch for Melissa and gave her the feeling that we are all in this together (30:46).
- Leah and Melissa tell listeners about the great additions to Her Story of Success coming in 2020 (33:00).
- Leah and Melissa talk about how the community and connectivity of Her Story of Success can help each listener grow, learn and give back (36:20).
