Melissa works closely with founders and CEOs to build, develop, and retain best-in-class executive teams and boards. She designed the CEO leadership program, Invictus, to foster a community of NEA leaders who support one another and propagate best practices across the portfolio. Melissa brings broad operating experience from the technology and healthcare sectors, along with a passion for building relationships, to cultivate leaders who will build life-changing companies with global reach.

Melissa began her career in technology at Qualcomm (supply chain management), Hewlett Packard (global contract manufacturing strategy) and Netopia (strategic technology alliances). She then transitioned to healthcare as President of Drip Drop, Inc., building an oral-rehydration product and realizing her passion for improving human health through creative technology solutions. She joined Khosla Ventures as an Operating Partner before joining NEA as a Partner in 2015.

Melissa grew up in South Africa before coming to the United States to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of San Diego, where she earned her MBA. South Africa provided her with her guiding philosophy, Ubuntu, which recognizes that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye and that we rise by lifting others.