Melanie Ryland

740.275.8948 | melanieryland.com | Chicago, IL

2024-Current

Founder - Argos

Brand Strategy Consultancy for mission-driven founders and entrepreneurs.

Head of Growth - Em Software

Family business: boutique software firm powering Fortune 500 companies, global governmental agencies, and mom & pop businesses across 80 countries.

2024

Sabbatical - Myself

Faced death on a mountain in Hawaii, picked up tennis again, helped friends launch/scale dream projects, devoted time and effort uncovering what work I've been put on this earth to do.

2022-2023

Researcher & Strategist - Helpfully

Lead human-centered research, strategy, and UX design projects for clients including CVS, Costco, Canadian Standards Association, and ADP.

2021-2022

Student & Intern - Springboard

700+ hours of hands-on course material in the field of user experience design, with 1:1 expert mentor oversight, and completion of 4 in-depth portfolio projects plus an internship project with a pre-seed startup.

Business Analyst - VSO on contract with NYSDOL

Part-time job alongside my studies. Investigated fraudulent Covid relief claims (amounting to billions) in New York state: provided an eye-opening look into the state of poverty in our country.

2019-2020

Program Manager - Institute of Catholic Culture

This was a year (turned 1.5 years) intended to give back out of gratitude for what I learned in my studies.

2014-2019

Undergrad/Master Student - Katholische Hochschule ITI & Universität Wien

Philosophy & Theology studies with a focus on human behavior at the ITI, German language studies at Uni Wien. I also ran event programming for three years at ITI while studying, founding Symposium, (you guessed it) a dinner & lecture series.

For more detail and positions prior to university, please refer to my LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanieryland/