Board Member

Melanie Trottman is a longtime journalist-turned-public-relations-specialist in Washington, DC., where she is a Senior Vice President and Editorial Director at global communications firm Edelman. Before joining Edelman in 2017, she spent two decades as a reporter with The Wall Street Journal, where she covered and commentated on a range of topics including economics, labor, travel, and consumer-product safety. Melanie has written about the tensions over increasing minimum wages; gender pay equity; workplace safety, and the pharmaceutical and airline industries. Her volunteer work has often focused on the betterment of girls and women. In New York, she mentored teen girls through the organization Dreams Into Action. In Dallas, she volunteered at the Genesis Women's Shelter. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Melanie is a self-described "lifelong storyteller." That led her to Northwestern University, where she earned a Bachelor's degree in journalism.