Melanie has been working in the research, analytics, and account planning world for close to 20 years across a wide variety of industries. She has spent the majority of her career in Fortune 500 companies and major nonprofit organizations, leading research, analytics, and planning teams. Dr. Richards enjoys helping organizations make smart and efficient decisions that focus on customer needs, preferences and behaviors, which in turn optimize business performance. She mentors her student teams to approach business questions with the same attitude.