Are you in APAC? I would love to connect! Drop me a note and set up a time: https://calendly.com/mbeaumontlee
As Director of the Atlassian Foundation, Melissa established the inaugural Foundation strategy and now leads Atlassian’s support of the Pledge 1% movement. Prior to this she operationalised the Foundation’s education focused mission; to empower youth from low-income communities to build the skills necessary to thrive in the 21st century.
In order to realise this vision and partner with social impact organisations worldwide, she successfully lobbied the Australian government to review the charity sector’s regulations that disincentivised supporting benevolent work in developing countries.
As a strong believer in the power of teams, Melissa forms deep collaborative partnerships including with government agencies (e.g. Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, DFAT), education institutions (e.g. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT), philanthropists and innovative social entrepreneurs.
Historically Melissa assessed new partnerships for strategic fit, with the Foundation now granting ~USD10M annually. The Atlassian Foundation is ranked in the top five percent compared to other Foundations for its impact on partner organizations, according to the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s (CEP) Grantee Perception Survey.
She oversees the Foundation’s governance, with a corpus of ~USD250M and growing. In order to manage the Foundation’s rapidly increasing resources she founded the Atlassian Foundation Finance and Investment Committee, which includes ethical and impact investing.
In order to share learnings and further conversations on international giving she presents to audiences such as the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN), Philanthropy Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade staffers, as a guest speaker at other Foundation’s board meetings and to the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) community.
In a previous ‘life’ Melissa was a Senior Broadcast Journalist for the BBC in London and other news outlets. She has also worked in communications for one of Australia's largest education non-profits, The Smith Family.
