
Melanie H.
5.0
Impactful and Compassionate Leadership

Studied at Haas School of Business (Berkeley)

Works at Uphill Coaching
Hiring Manager
Available Friday at 7:00 PM UTC
Questions? Start chatting with this coach before you get started.
Melanie’s Leadership Development Qualifications
Coaches professionally
Experience level: Executive
10+ people coached for Leadership Development
Melanie has helped clients get into these companies:
Your Goals: As a new leader, you may want to move from task manager to people leader, prepare to take on a new team or responsibilities, or shift from tactical to strategic leadership. Additionally, you may want to conquer imposter syndrome, identify and navigate your blind spots, or act on specific feedback to enhance your leadership strengths. Our Work Together: Our work together will provide you with the opportunity to develop self-awareness, recognize your strengths, address your weaknesses, and empower you to make informed decisions and lead with confidence. Through this process, you’ll be equipped to overcome obstacles, build resilience, and capitalize on opportunities for growth, enabling you to lead with clarity, purpose, and effectiveness.
Melanie can help with:
Conflict Resolution
Change Management
Problem Solving
Emotional Intelligence
Coaching and Mentoring
Time Management
Innovation and Creativity
About Melanie
I'm all about continuous learning, empowering others, staying active, nurturing a growth mindset, and spending time in nature. My friends see me as passionate, resilient, smart, energetic, creative, and caring. Personality tests label me as a practical, strategic problem solver, leaning on the healthy side of control freak. My superpowers include sparking change, being the calm in the storm, spotting potential even in tough situations, and radiating energy. With a background in engineering, program management, and executive leadership, I specialize in change management and strategic planning and helping technically focused clients. I’m passionate about empowering others to reach their full potential and navigate career challenges, having personally overcome layoffs and difficult job markets. Challenges gifted to me include navigating divorce and parallel parenting, supporting a child with extra needs, and being laid off two times within a year - twice! But I've also sought and embraced challenges like a startup career, being a woman in engineering, and diving into BMX racing at 40. Much of my life is focused on my family and while each of my kids is special to me, everyone knows the dog is my favorite. When I prioritize time for myself, I enjoy trail running, cuddling with my pup, borrowing too many library books, laughing at my own jokes, and spending quality time with my chosen family. As a coach, I can tap into my experience to help you navigate difficult challenges and maintain motivation, while shining a light on the vision in front of you.
Why do I coach?
As an engineer, I am drawn to solving problems. However, this can be a trap, as not all problems need to be solved. I find the coaching enables focus on the bigger vision and broader goals, pulling the client out of the weeds and distractions. Additionally, I appreciate that each client already has the answers and my role is not to provide solutions, but to act as a mirror for gaining clarity and formulating insights into action. My own coaching journey has enabled me to navigate difficult periods of my career and life by discovering and understanding my core values, and ruthlessly prioritizing to build a career I enjoy, and a fulfilling life.
Work Experience
Sr Director of Engineering and Program Management
Aerin Medical
March 2024 - Present
Hiring Manager
I joined the team to help the company scale with predictable timelines and a strong product development pipeline. The role includes establishing and refining processes, creating frameworks for rapid and informed decision making, and coaching/developing individuals and teams. Within the first year, I was promoted to run strategic planning for the organization and implement change management systems to enable successful transition into a high growth phase.

Career Coach
Join A Crew
March 2024 - Present
Part of a team of coaches, design-thinkers, HR professionals, and technologists building a social career platform to enable millions of workers to collaboratively design careers that bring meaning and joy.

Founder and Coach
Uphill Coaching
2022 - Present
Early coaching coaching experience started with mentoring people on career transitions and growth, especially early career engineers and women in tech. Additional mentoring focused on navigating challenging interpersonal work dynamics, and strategic growth of individuals and companies. Leveraged coaching style leadership as a manager and finally made it official by founding Uphill Coaching.
Sr Director of Program Management and Business Operations
Levita Magnetics
2023 - 2024
Hiring Manager
Delivered a large impact in a short time, by executing small project from concept to final test while organizing the US commercial robotic launch, creating systems to increases efficiency, mentoring younger engineers and new project leads, and supporting the small team as acting head of Quality. Additionally, I established the framework for growth as a member of the senior leadership team.

Sr Director of Program Management, Head of PMO
Teknova
2022 - 2023
Hiring Manager
Built a program management team from scratch, transforming it from a small group into a fully-fledged standalone department, earning a promotion to the executive team. Recognized the importance of developing a strong organizational culture, and actively coached, trained, and mentored internal staff members to enhance communication channels, foster cross-functional collaboration, and cultivate leadership skills within the organization.
Sr Director of Program Management, Head of PMO
Recor Medical
2019 - 2022
Hiring Manager
Established the PMO and piloted the Systems Engineering team, while serving in a strategic planning role on the executive team.

Director of Product
Accuryn Medical
2018 - 2019
Hiring Manager
Championed product updates, coached senior leaders, and collaborated directly with end users and sales distributors to drive product development roadmap with engineers and enable revenue strategy while reduce sales cycle timeline by 20% and improved sales funnel conversion by 10%.
R&D and Software Manager
ZOLL Medical
2014 - 2018
Hiring Manager
Built 13 person early stage pipeline development team, leveraging startup skills to implement faster development at $1B+ company.
Education

Haas School of Business (Berkeley)
Master of Business Administration - MBA
2006 - 2009
Oral Communication, Strategic Thinking and +3 skills

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
BS, Mechanical Engineering
1997 - 2001
Oral Communication, Strategic Thinking and +3 skills
Melanie was also personally admitted to
Clemson University
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Virginia Military Institute
North Carolina State University
Virginia Commonwealth University
Harvey Mudd College
Georgia Institute of Technology
Washington University in St. Louis
10 Reviews
Overall Rating
5.0
Melanie has helped clients get into these companies: